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2Dije Kibersitie Literature Series 


THE GENTLE BOY 


AND OTHER TALES 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 


WITH NOTES 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introductory Note iii 

The Gentle Boy 1 

Roger Malvin’s Burial 43 

The Wedding Knell 69 

The Gray Champion 80 


H7br*ry of Conct^ s | 

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Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


The four tales which make this little collection are 
drawn from the two books which contain the most of 
Hawthorne’s short stories, Twice-Told Tales and 
Mosses from an Old Manse , the first, third, and 
fourth from the former, the second from the latter 
collection. It was in his briefer tales that Hawthorne 
first won his reputation, and they still furnish the 
most varied illustration of his genius. The first of 
these stories, which is the longest of his minor pieces, 
and has almost the proportion of a volume, was re- 
peatedly used as the mark of his fame, for since in 
printing his earlier writings Hawthorne rarely ap- 
pended his name, it was very common to announce 
his stories as “ By the Author of 4 The Gentle Boy.’ ” 

The story was printed first anonymously in The 
Token for 1832, an illustrated annual, and two years 
after it appeared as one of the first series of Twice- 
Told Tales , it was published as a volume by itself by 
Weeks, Jordan & Co., Boston, 1839. The interest 
attaching to this independent publication is derived 
from the fact that it had a frontispiece from a draw- 
ing made for it by Miss Sophia A. Peabody, to whom 
not long after Hawthorne became engaged, and whom 
he married in 1842. 

Hawthorne was one of the earliest to see in the his- 
tory of New England a field for poetry and romance, 
and in the story of 44 The Gentle Boy,” he has touched 
upon one of the most difficult passages of that history 


IV 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE . 


for a modern reader to comprehend. The Puritan 
and the Quaker each turned away from the prevailing 
ecclesiastical power in the search for a purer religious 
observance, and yet in this new land where each came 
for greater freedom, the Puritan turned upon the 
Quaker with bitter persecution. The difficulty is 
partly explained by the extremities to which the more 
fanatical of the Quakers went in their protest against 
the authority of the state, but it is only by carefully 
considering the sternness with which the Puritan held 
to his closely constructed organization of church and 
state, and the equal rigidity with which the Quaker 
clung to his individual authority, that we can come to 
some apprehension of the spirit of antagonism which 
existed. To understand the New England of the time 
of this tale one should read Hawthorne and Whittier, 
the former a descendent of the Puritan, the latter a 
modern representative of the remnant of the Quaker 
element. Both throw the light of poetic genius on 
the situation. One of Whittier’s poems, “ The King’s 
Missive,” bears directly on an incident in “ The Gen- 
tle Boy.” 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


In the course of the year 1656, several of the peo- 
ple called Quakers, led, as they professed, by the in- 
ward movement of the spirit, made their appearance 
in New England. Their reputation, as holders of 
mystic and pernicious principles, having spread before 
them, the Puritans early endeavored to banish, and to 
prevent the further intrusion of the rising sect. But 
the measures by which it was intended »to purge the 
land of heresy, though more than sufficiently vigorous, 
were entirely unsuccessful. The Quakers, esteeming 
persecution as a divine call to the post of danger, laid 
claim to a holy courage, unknown to the Puritans 
themselves, who had shunned the cross, by providing 
for the peaceable exercise of their religion in a distant 
wilderness. Though it was the singular fact, that 
every nation of the earth rejected the wandering en- 
thusiasts who practised peace towards all men, the 
place of greatest uneasiness and peril, and therefore, 
in their eyes the most eligible, was the province of 
Massachusetts Bay. 

The fines, imprisonments, and stripes, liberally dis- 
tributed by our pious forefathers ; the popular antip- 
athy, so strong that it endured nearly a hundred years 
after actual persecution had ceased, were attractions 
as powerful for the Quakers, as peace, honor, and re- 
ward, would have been for the worldly minded. Every 
European vessel brought new cargoes of the sect, eager 
to testify against the oppression which they hoped to 


2 


HA WTHORNE. 


share ; and when shipmasters were restrained by heavy 
fines from affording them passage, they made long 
and circuitous journeys through the Indian country, 
and appeared in the province as if conveyed by a 
supernatural power. Their enthusiasm, heightened al- 
most to madness by the treatment which they received, 
produced actions contrary to the rules of decency, as 
well as of rational religion, and presented a singular 
contrast to the calm and staid deportment of their 
sectarian successors of the present day. The com- 
mand of the spirit, inaudible except to the soul, and 
not to be controverted on grounds of human wisdom, 
was made a plea for most indecorous exhibitions, 
which, abstractedly considered, well deserved the mod- 
erate chastisement of the rod. These extravagances, 
and the persecution which was at once their cause and 
consequence, continued to increase, till, in the year 
1659, the government of Massachusetts Bay indulged 
two members of the Quaker sect with the crown of 
martyrdom. 

An indelible stain of blood is upon the hands of all 
who consented to this act, but a large share of the aw- 
ful responsibility must rest upon the person then at 
the head of the government. He was a man of narrow 
mind and imperfect education, and his uncompromis- 
ing bigotry was made hot and mischievous by violent 
and hasty passions; he exerted his influence indeco- 
rously and unjustifiably to compass the death of the 
enthusiasts ; and his whole conduct, in respect to them, 
was marked by brutal cruelty. The Quakers, whose 
revengeful feelings were not less deep because they 
were inactive, remembered this man and his associates 
in after times. The historian of the sect affirms that, 
by the wrath of Heaven, a blight fell upon the land in 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


3 


the vicinity of the “ bloody town ” of Boston, so that 
no wheat would grow there ; and he takes his stand, 
as it were, among the graves of the ancient persecu- 
tors, and triumphantly recounts the judgments that 
overtook them, in old age or at the parting hour. He 
tells us that they died suddenly and violently and in 
madness ; but nothing can exceed the bitter mockery 
with which he records the loathsome disease, and 
“death by rottenness,” of the fierce and cruel gov- 
ernor. 

On the evening of the autumn day that had wit- 
nessed the martyrdom of two men of the Quaker 
persuasion, a Puritan settler was returning from the 
metropolis to the neighboring country town in which 
he resided. The air was cool, the sky clear, and the 
lingering twilight was made brighter by the rays of a 
young moon, which had now nearly reached the verge 
of the horizon. The traveller, a man of middle age, 
wrapped in a gray frieze cloak, quickened his pace 
when he had reached the outskirts of the town, for a 
gloomy extent of nearly four miles lay between him 
and his home. The low, straw-thatched houses were 
scattered at considerable intervals along the road, and 
the country having been settled but about thirty years, 
the tracts of original forest still bore no small pro- 
portion to the cultivated ground. The autumn wind 
wandered among the branches, whirling away the 
leaves from all except the pine-trees, and moaning as 
if it lamented the desolation of which it was the in- 
strument. The road had penetrated the mass of 
woods that lay nearest to the town, and was just 
emerging into an open space, when the traveller’s ears 
were saluted by a sound more mournful than even 


4 HA WTHORNE. 

that of the wind. It was like the wailing of some 
one in distress, and it seemed to proceed from beneath 
a tall and lonely fir-tree, in the centre of a cleared 
but uninclosed and uncultivated field. The Puritan 
could not but remember that this was the very spot 
which had been made accursed a few hours before by 
the execution of the Quakers, whose bodies had been 
thrown together into one hasty grave, beneath the tree 
on which they suffered. He struggled, however, 
against the superstitious fears which belonged to the 
age, and compelled himself to pause and listen. 

“ The voice is most likely mortal, nor have I cause 
to tremble if it be otherwise,” thought he, straining 
his eyes through the dim moonlight. “ Methinks it is 
like the wailing of a child ; some infant, it may be, 
which has strayed from its mother, and chanced upon 
this place of death. For the ease of mine own con- 
science I must search this matter out.” 

He therefore left the path, and walked somewhat 
fearfully across the field. Though now so desolate, its 
soil was pressed down and trampled by the thousand 
footsteps of those who had witnessed the spectacle of 
that day, all of whom had now retired, leaving the 
dead to their loneliness. The traveller at length 
reached the fir-tree, which from the middle upward 
was covered with living branches, although a scaffold 
had been erected beneath, and other preparations 
made for the work of death. Under this unhappy 
tree, which in after times was believed to drop poison 
with its dew, sat the one solitary mourner for innocent 
blood. It was a slender and light clad little boy, who 
leaned his face upon a hillock of fresh-turned and 
half-frozen earth, and wailed bitterly, yet in a sup* 
pressed tone, as if his grief might receive the punish 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


5 


ment of crime. The Puritan, whose approach had 
been unperceived, laid his hand upon the child’s 
shoulder, and addressed him compassionately. 

“You have chosen a dreary lodging, my poor boy, 
and no wonder that you weep,” said he. “ But dry 
your eyes, and tell me where your mother dwells. I 
promise you, if the journey be not too far, I will leave 
you in her arms to-night.” 

The boy had hushed his wailing at once, and turned 
his face upward to the stranger. It was a pale, bright- 
eyed countenance, certainly not more than six years 
old, but sorrow, fear, and want had destroyed much 
of its infantile expression. The Puritan seeing the 
boy’s frightened gaze, and feeling that he trembled 
under his hand, endeavored to reassure him. 

“Nay, if I intended to do you harm, little lad, the 
readiest way were to leave you here. What ! you do 
not fear to sit beneath the gallows on a new-made 
grave, and yet you tremble at a friend’s touch. Take 
heart, child, and tell me what is your name and where 
is your home? ” 

“ Friend,” replied the little boy, in a sweet though 
faltering voice, “ they call me Ilbrahim, and my home 
is here.” 

The pale, spiritual face, the eyes that seemed to 
mingle with the moonlight, the sweet, airy voice, and 
the outlandish name, almost made the Puritan believe 
that the boy was in truth a being which had sprung 
up out of the grave on which he sat. But perceiving 
that the apparition stood the test of a short mental 
prayer, and remembering that the arm which he had 
touched was lifelike, he adopted a more rational sup- 
position. “ The poor child is stricken in his intellect,” 
thought he, “but verily his words are fearful in a 


6 


HA WTHORNE. 


place like this.” He then spoke soothingly, intending 
to humor the boy’s fantasy. 

“ Your home will scarce be comfortable, Ilbrahim, 
this cold autumn night, and I fear you are ill-provided 
with food. I am hastening to a warm supper and bed, 
and if you will go with me you shall share them ! ” 

“ I thank thee, friend, but though I be hungry, and 
shivering with cold, thou wilt not give me food nor 
lodging,” replied the boy, in the quiet tone which 
despair had taught him, even so young. “ My father 
was of the people whom all men hate. They have laid 
him under this heap of earth, and here is my home.” 

The Puritan, who had laid hold of little Ilbrahim’s 
hand, relinquished it as if he were touching a loath- 
some reptile. But he possessed a compassionate heart, 
which not even religious prejudice could harden into 
stone. 

“ God forbid that I should leave this child to per- 
ish, though he comes of the accursed sect,” said he to 
himself. “ Do we not all spring from an evil root? 
Are we not all in darkness till the light doth shine 
upon us ? He shall not perish, neither in body, nor, 
if prayer and instruction may avail for him, in soul.” 
He then spoke aloud and kindly to Ilbrahim, who had 
again hid his face in the cold earth of the grave. 
“Was every door in the land shut against you, my 
child, that you have wandered to this unhallowed 
spot?” 

“ They drove me forth from the prison when they 
took my father thence,” said the boy, “ and I stood 
afar off watching the crowd of people, and when they 
were gone I came hither, and found only his grave. 
I knew that my father was sleeping here, and I said 
this shall be my home.” 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


7 


“ No, child, no ; not while I have a roof over my 
head, or a morsel to share with you ! ” exclaimed the 
Puritan, whose sympathies were now fully excited. 
“ Rise up and come with me, and fear not any harm.” 

The boy wept afresh, and clung to the heap of 
earth as if the cold heart beneath it were warmer to 
him than any in a living breast. The traveller, how- 
ever, continued to entreat him tenderly, and seeming 
to acquire some degree of confidence, he at length 
arose. But his slender limbs tottered with weakness, 
his little head grew dizzy, and he leaned against the 
tree of death for support. 

“ My poor boy, are you so feeble ? ” said the Puri- 
tan. “ When did you taste food last ? ” 

“ I ate of bread and water with my father in the 
prison,” replied Ilbrahim, “ but they brought him none 
neither yesterday nor to-day, saying that he had eaten 
enough to bear him to his journey’s end. Trouble not 
thyself for my hunger, kind friend, for I have lacked 
food many times ere now.” 

The traveller took the child in his arms and wrapped 
his cloak about him, while his heart stirred with shame 
and anger against the gratuitous cruelty of the instru- 
ments in this persecution. In the awakened warmth 
of his feelings he resolved that, at whatever risk, he 
would not forsake the poor little defenceless being 
whom Heaven had confided to his care. With this 
determination he left the accursed field, and resumed 
the homeward path from which the wailing of the boy 
had called him. The light and motionless burden 
scarcely impeded his progress, and he soon beheld the 
fire rays from the windows of the cottage which he, a 
native of a distant clime, had built in the western wil- 
derness. It was surrounded by a considerable extent 


8 


HA WTHORNE. 


of cultivated ground, and the dwelling was situated in 
the nook of a wood-covered hill, whither it seemed to 
have crept for protection. 

“Look up, child,” said the Puritan to Ilbrahim, 
whose faint head had sunk upon his shoulder, “ there 
is our home.” 

At the word “ home,” a thrill passed through the 
child’s frame, but he continued silent. A few moments 
brought them to a cottage door, at which the owner 
knocked ; for at that early period, when savages were 
wandering everywhere among the settlers, bolt and 
bar were indispensable to the security of a dwelling. 
The summons was answered by a bond-servant, a 
coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who, 
after ascertaining that his master was the applicant, 
undid the door, and held a flaring pine-knot torch to 
light him in. Farther back in the passage-way, the 
red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no little 
crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their 
father’s return. As the Puritan entered, he thrust 
aside his cloak, and displayed Ilbrahim’s face to the 
female. 

“ Dorothy, here is a little outcast, whom Providence 
hath put into our hands,” observed he. “ Be kind to 
him, even as if he were of those dear ones who have 
departed from us.” 

“ What pale and bright-eyed little boy is this, To- 
bias? ” she inquired. “ Is he one whom the wilderness 
folk have ravished from some Christian mother ? ” 

“No, Dorothy, this poor child is no captive from 
the wilderness,” he replied. “The heathen savage 
would have given him to eat of his scanty morsel, and 
to drink of his birchen cup ; but Christian men, alas ! 
had cast him out to die.” 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


9 


Then he told her how he had found him beneath 
fche gallows, upon his father’s grave; and how his 
heart had prompted him, like the speaking of an in- 
ward voice, to take the little outcast home, and be 
kind unto him. He acknowledged his resolution to 
feed and clothe him, as if he were his own child, and 
to afford him the instruction which should counteract 
the pernicious errors hitherto instilled into his infant 
mind. Dorothy was gifted with even a quicker ten- 
derness than her husband, and she approved of all his 
doings and intentions. 

“ Have you a mother, dear child ? ” she inquired. 

The tears burst forth from his full heart, as he at- 
tempted to reply ; but Dorothy at length understood 
that he had a mother, who, like the rest of her sect, 
was a persecuted wanderer. She had been taken from 
the prison a short time before, carried into the unin- 
habited wilderness, and left to perish there by hunger 
or wild beasts. This was no uncommon method of 
disposing of the Quakers, and they were accustomed 
to boast that the inhabitants of the desert were more 
hospitable to them than civilized man. 

“ Fear not, little boy, you shall not need a mother, 
and a kind one,” said Dorothy, when she had gathered 
this information. “ Dry your tears, Ilbrahim, and be 
my child, as I will be your mother.” 

The good woman prepared the little bed, from 
which her own children had successively been borne to 
another resting-place. Before Ilbrahim would consent 
to occupy it, he knelt down, and as Dorothy listened 
to his simple and affecting prayer, she marvelled how 
the parents that had taught it to him could have been 
judged worthy of death. When the boy had fallen 
asleep, she bent over his pale and spiritual counte- 


10 


HA WTHORNE. 


nance, pressed a kiss upon his white brow, drew the 
bedclothes up about his neck, and went away with a 
pensive gladness in her heart. 

Tobias Pearson was not among the earliest emi- 
grants from the old country. He had remained in 
England during the first years of the civil war, in 
which he had borne some share as a cornet of dra- 
goons, under Cromwell. But when the ambitious de- 
signs of his leader began to develop themselves, he 
quitted the army of the Parliament, and sought a ref- 
uge from the strife, which was no longer holy, among 
the people of his persuasion in the colony of Massa- 
chusetts. A more worldly consideration had perhaps 
an influence in drawing him thither ; for New England 
offered advantages to men of unprosperous fortunes, 
as well as to dissatisfied religionists, and Pearson had 
hitherto found it difficult to provide for a wife and in- 
creasing family. To this supposed impurity of motive 
the more bigoted Puritans were inclined to impute the 
removal by death of all the children, for whose earthly 
good the father had been over-thoughtful. They had 
left their native country blooming like roses, and like 
roses they had perished in a foreign soil. Those ex- 
pounders of the ways of Providence, who had thus 
judged their brother, and attributed his domestic sor- 
rows to his sin, were not more charitable when they 
saw him and Dorothy endeavoring to fill up the void 
in their hearts by the adoption of an infant of the 
accursed sect. Nor did they fail to communicate 
their disapprobation to Tobias ; but the latter, in re- 
ply, merely pointed at the little, quiet, lovely boy, 
whose appearance and deportment were indeed as pow- 
erful arguments as could possibly have been adduced 
in his own favor. Even his beauty, however, and his 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


11 


winning manners, sometimes produced an effect ulti- 
mately unfavorable ; for the bigots, when the outer 
surfaces of their iron hearts had been softened and 
again grew hard, affirmed that no merely natural 
cause could have so worked upon them. 

Their antipathy to the poor infant was also in- 
creased by the ill success of divers theological discus- 
sions, in which it was attempted to convince him of 
the errors of his sect. Ilbrahim, it is true, was not a 
skilful controversialist ; but the feeling of his religion 
was strong as instinct in him, and he could neither be 
enticed nor driven from the faith which his father had 
died for. The odium of this stubbornness was shared 
in a great measure by the child’s protectors, insomuch 
that Tobias and Dorothy very shortly began to expe- 
rience a most bitter species of persecution, in the cold 
regards of many a friend whom they had valued. The 
common people manifested their opinions more openly. 
Pearson was a man of some consideration, being a 
representative to the General Court, and an approved 
lieutenant in the trainbands, yet within a week after 
his adoption of Ilbrahim he had been both hissed and 
hooted. Once, also, when walking through a solitary 
piece of woods, he heard a loud voice from some in- 
visible speaker ; and it cried, “ What shall be done to 
the backslider ? Lo ! the scourge is knotted for him, 
even the whip of nine cords, and every cord three 
knots ! ” These insults irritated Pearson’s temper for 
the moment ; they entered also into his heart, and be- 
came imperceptible but powerful workers towards an 
end which his most secret thought had not yet whis- 
pered. 

On the second Sabbath after Ilbrahim became a 


12 


HA WTHORNE. 


member of tbeir family, Pearson and his wife deemed 
it proper that he should appear with them at public 
worship. They had anticipated some opposition to 
this measure from the boy, but he prepared himself 
in silence, and at the appointed hour was clad in the 
new mourning suit which Dorothy had wrought for 
him. As the parish was then, and during many sub- 
sequent years, unprovided with a bell, the signal for 
the commencement of religious exercises was the beat 
of a drum. At the first sound of that martial call 
to the place of holy and quiet thoughts, Tobias and 
Dorothy set forth, each holding a hand of little Ilbra- 
him, like two parents linked together by the infant of 
their love. On their path through the leafless woods 
they were overtaken by many persons of their ac- 
quaintance, all of whom avoided them, and passed by 
on the other side ; but a severer trial awaited their 
constancy when they had descended the hill, and drew 
near the pine-built and undecorated house of prayer. 
Aroimd the door, from which the drummer still sent 
forth his thundering summons, was drawn up a for- 
midable phalanx, including several of the oldest mem- 
bers of the congregation, many of the middle aged, 
and nearly all the younger males. Pearson found 
it difficult to sustain their united and disapproving 
gaze, but Dorothy, whose mind was differently circum- 
stanced, merely drew the boy closer to her, and fal- 
tered not in her approach. As they entered the door, 
they overheard the muttered sentiments of the assem- 
blage, and when the reviling voices of the little chil- 
dren smote Ilbrahiin’s ear, he wept. 

The interior aspect of the meeting-house was rude. 
The low ceiling, the unplastered walls, the naked 
wood work, and the undraperied pulpit, offered noth- 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


13 


mg to excite the devotion, which, without such exter- 
nal aids, often remains latent in the heart. The floor 
of the building was occupied by rows of long, cushion- 
less benches, supplying the place of pews, and the 
broad aisle formed a sexual division, impassable ex- 
cept by children beneath a certain age. 

Pearson and Dorothy separated at the door of the 
meeting-house, and Ilbrahim, being within the years 
of infancy, was retained under the care of the latter. 
The wrinkled beldams involved themselves in their 
rusty cloaks as he passed by ; even the mild-featured 
maidens seemed to dread contamination ; and many 
a stern old man arose, and turned his repulsive and 
imheavenly countenance upon the gentle boy, as if the 
sanctuary were polluted by his presence. He was a 
sweet infant of the skies that had strayed away from 
his home, and all the inhabitants of this miserable 
world closed up their impure hearts against him, drew 
back their earth-soiled garments from his touch, and 
said, “We are holier than thou.” 

Ilbrahim, seated by the side of his adopted mother, 
and retaining fast hold of her hand, assumed a grave 
and decorous demeanor, such as might befit a person 
of matured taste and understanding, who should find 
himself in a temple dedicated to some worship which 
he did not recognize, but felt himself bound to respect. 
The exercises had not yet commenced, however, when 
the boy’s attention was arrested by an event, appar- 
ently of trifling interest. A woman, having her face 
muffled in a hood, and a cloak drawn completely about 
her form, advanced slowly up the broad aisle and took 
a place upon the foremost bench. Ilbrahim s faint 
color varied, his nerves fluttered, he was unable to 
turn his eyes from the muffled female. 


14 


HA WT HORNE. 


When the preliminary prayer and hymn were over, 
the minister arose, and having turned the hour-glass 
which stood by the great Bible, commenced his dis- 
course. He was now well stricken in years, a man of 
pale, thin countenance, and his gray hairs were closely 
covered by a black velvet skullcap. In his younger 
days he had practically learned the meaning of perse- 
cution from Archbishop Laud, and he was not now 
disposed to forget the lesson against which he had 
murmured then. Introducing the often discussed sub- 
ject of the Quakers, he gave a history of that sect, and 
a description of their tenets, in which error predomi- 
nated, and prejudice distorted the aspect of what was 
true. He adverted to the recent measures in the prov- 
ince, and cautioned his hearers of weaker parts against 
calling in question the just severity which God-fear- 
ing magistrates had at length been compelled to exer- 
cise. He spoke of the danger of pity, in some cases a 
commendable and Christian virtue, but inapplicable to 
this pernicious sect. He observed that such was their 
devilish obstinacy in error, that even the little chil- 
dren, the sucking babes, were hardened and desperate 
heretics. He affirmed that no man, without Heaven’s 
especial warrant, should attempt their conversion, lest 
while he lent his hand to draw them from the slough, 
he should himself be precipitated into its lowest 
depths. 

The sands of the second hour were principally in 
the lower half of the glass when the sermon concluded. 
An approving murmur followed, and the clergyman, 
having given out a hymn, took his seat with much 
self-congratulation, and endeavored to read the effect 
of his eloquence in the visages of the people. But 
while voices from all parts of the house were tuning 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


15 


themselves to sing, a scene occurred, which, though 
not very unusual at that period in the province, hap- 
pened to be without precedent in this parish. 

The muffled female, who had hitherto sat motionless 
in the front rank of the audience, now arose, and with 
slow, stately, and unwavering step, ascended the pul- 
pit stairs. The quiverings of incipient harmony were 
hushed, and the divine sat in speechless and almost 
terrified astonishment, while she undid the door, and 
stood up in the sacred desk from which his maledic- 
tions had just been thundered. She then divested her- 
self of the cloak and hood, and appeared in a most 
singular array. A shapeless robe of sackcloth was 
girded about her waist with a knotted cord ; her raven 
hair fell down upon her shoulders, and its blackness 
was defiled by pale streaks of ashes, which she had 
strown upon her head. Her eyebrows, dark and 
strongly defined, added to the deathly whiteness of a 
countenance, which, emaciated with want, and wild 
with enthusiasm and strange sorrows, retained no trace 
of earlier beauty. This figure stood gazing earnestly 
on the audience, and there was no sound, nor any 
movement, except a faint shuddering which every man 
observed in his neighbor, but was scarcely conscious 
of in himself. At length, when her fit of inspiration 
came, she spoke, for the first few moments, in a low 
voice, and not invariably distinct utterance. Her dis- 
course gave evidence of an imagination hopelessly 
entangled with her reason; it was a vague and in- 
comprehensible rhapsody, which, however, seemed to 
spread its own atmosphere round the hearer’s soul, 
and to move his feelings by some influence uncon- 
nected with the words. As she proceeded, beautiful 
but shadowy images would sometimes be seen, like 


16 


HA WTHORNE. 


bright things moving in a turbid river ; or a strong 
and singularly-shaped idea leaped forth, and seized 
at once on the understanding or the heart. But the 
course of her unearthly eloquence soon led her to the 
persecutions of her sect, and from thence the step was 
short to her own peculiar sorrows. She was naturally 
a woman of mighty passions, and hatred and revenge 
now wrapped themselves in the garb of piety; the 
character of her speech was changed, her images be- 
came distinct though wild, and her denunciations had 
an almost hellish bitterness. 

“The Governor and his mighty men,” she said, 
“ have gathered together, taking counsel among them- 
selves and saying, 4 What shall we do unto this people 
— even unto the people that have come into this land 
to put our iniquity to the blush ? ’ And lo ! the devil 
entereth into the council chamber, like a lame man of 
low stature and gravely apparelled, with a dark and 
twisted countenance, and a bright, downcast eye. And 
he standeth up among the rulers ; yea, he goeth to and 
fro, whispering to each ; and every man lends his ear, 
for his word is 4 Slay, slay ! ’ But I say unto ye, 
W oe to them that slay ! Woe to them that shed the 
blood of saints ! Woe to them that have slain the 
husband, and cast forth the child, the tender infant, 
to wander homeless and hungry and cold, till he die ; 
and have saved the mother alive, in the cruelty of their 
tender mercies ! Woe to them in their lifetime ! cursed 
are they in the delight and pleasure of their hearts ! 
Woe to them in their death hour, whether it come 
swiftly with blood and violence, or after long and 
lingering pain ! W oe, in the dark house, in the rot- 
tenness of the grave, when the children’s children shall 
revile the ashes of the fathers ! W oe, woe, woe, at 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


17 


the judgment, when all the persecuted and all the slain 
in this bloody land, and the father, the mother, and 
the child, shall await them in a day that they cannot 
escape ! Seed of the faith, seed of the faith, ye whose 
hearts are moving with a power that ye know not, 
arise, wash your hands of this innocent blood ! Lift 
your voices, chosen ones ; cry aloud, and call down a 
woe and a judgment with me ! ” 

Having thus given vent to the flood of malignity 
which she mistook for inspiration, the speaker was 
silent. Her voice was succeeded by the hysteric shrieks 
of several women, but the feelings of the audience gen- 
erally had not been drawn onward in the current with 
her own. They remained stupefied, stranded as it 
were, in the midst of a torrent, which deafened them 
by its roaring, but might not move them by its vio- 
lence. The clergyman, who could not hitherto have 
ejected the usurper of his pulpit otherwise than by 
bodily force, now addressed her in the tone of just in- 
dignation and legitimate authority. 

“ Get you down, woman, from the holy place which 
you profane,” he said. “ Is it to the Lord’s house 
that you come to pour forth the foulness of your heart 
and the inspiration of the devil ? Get you down, 
and remember that the sentence of death is on you ; 
yea, and shall be executed, were it but for this day’s 
work! ” 

“ I go, friend, I go, for the voice hath had its utter- 
ance,” replied she, in a depressed and even mild tone. 
“ I have done my mission unto thee and to thy people. 
Reward me with stripes, imprisonment, or death, as ye 
shall be permitted.” 

The weakness of exhausted passion caused her steps 
to totter as she descended the pulpit stairs. The peo- 


18 


HA WTHORNE. 


pie, in the mean while, were stirring to and fro on the 
floor of the house, whispering among themselves, and 
glancing towards the intruder. Many of them now 
recognized her as the woman who had assaulted the 
Governor with frightful language as he passed by the 
window of her prison ; they knew, also, that she was 
adjudged to suffer death, and had been preserved only 
by an involuntary banishment into the wilderness. 
The new outrage, by which she had provoked her fate, 
seemed to render further lenity impossible ; and a gen- 
tleman in military dress, with a stout man of inferior 
rank, drew towards the door of the meeting-house, and 
awaited her approach. 

Scarcely did her feet press the floor, however, when 
an unexpected scene occurred. In that moment of 
her peril, when every eye frowned with death, a little 
timid boy pressed forth, and threw his arms round his 
mother. 

“ I am here, mother ; it is I, and I will go with thee 
to prison,” he exclaimed. 

She gazed at him with a doubtful and almost fright- 
ened expression, for she knew that the boy had been 
cast out to perish, and she had not hoped to see his 
face again. She feared, perhaps, that it was but one 
of the happy visions with which her excited fancy had 
often deceived her, in the solitude of the desert or in 
prison. But when she felt his hand warm within her 
own, and heard his little eloquence of childish love, 
she began to know that she was yet a mother. 

“ Blessed art thou, my son,” she sobbed. “ My heart 
was withered ; yea, dead with thee and with thy father ; 
and now it leaps as in the first moment when I pressed 
thee to my bosom.” 

She knelt down and embraced him again and again, 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


19 


while the joy that could find no words expressed itself 
in broken accents, like the bubbles gushing up to van- 
ish at the surface of a deep fountain. The sorrows of 
past years, and the darker peril that was nigh, cast 
not a shadow on the brightness of that fleeting mo- 
ment. Soon, however, the spectators saw a change 
upon her face, as the consciousness of her sad estate 
returned, and grief supplied the fount of tears which 
joy had opened. By the words she uttered, it would 
seem that the indulgence of natural love had given her 
mind a momentary sense of its errors, and made her 
know how far she had strayed from duty in following 
the dictates of a wild fanaticism. 

“ In a doleful hour art thou returned to me, poor 
boy,” she said, “ for thy mother’s path has gone dark- 
ening onward, till now the end is death. Son, son, I 
have borne thee in my arms when my limbs were tot- 
tering, and I have fed thee with the food that I was 
fainting for ; yet I have ill performed a mother’s part 
by thee in life, and now I leave thee no inheritance but 
woe and shame. Thou wilt go seeking through the 
world, and find all hearts closed against thee and their 
sweet affections turned to bitterness for my sake. My 
child, my child, how many a pang awaits thy gentle 
spirit, and I the cause of all ! ” 

She hid her face on Ilbrahim’s head, and her long, 
raven hair, discolored with the ashes of her mourning, 
fell down about him like a veil. A low and inter- 
rupted moan was the voice of her heart’s anguish, and 
it did not fail to move the sympathies of many who 
mistook their involuntary virtue for a sin. Sobs were 
audible in the female section of the house, and every 
man who was a father drew his hand across his eyes. 
Tobias Pearson was agitated and uneasy, but a certain 


20 


HA WTHORNE. 


feeling like the consciousness of guilt oppressed him, 
so that he could not go forth and offer himself as the 
protector of the child. Dorothy, however, had watched 
her husband’s eye. Her mind was free from the in- 
fluence that had begun to work on his, and she drew 
near the Quaker woman, and addressed her in the 
hearing of all the congregation. 

“ Stranger, trust this boy to me, and I will be his 
mother,” she said, taking Ilbrahim’s hand. “Provi- 
dence has signally marked out my husband to protect 
him, and he has fed at our table and lodged under 
our roof now many days, till our hearts have grown 
very strongly unto him. Leave the tender child with 
us, and be at ease concerning his welfare.” 

The Quaker rose from the ground, but drew the boy 
closer to her, while she gazed earnestly in Dorothy’s 
face. Her mild but saddened features, and neat ma- 
tronly attire, harmonized together, and were like a 
verse of fireside poetry. Her very aspect proved that 
she was blameless, so far as mortal could be so, in re- 
spect to God and man ; while the enthusiast, in her 
robe of sackcloth and girdle of knotted cord, had as 
evidently violated the duties of the present life and 
the future, by fixing her attention wholly on the latter. 
The two females, as they held each a hand of Ilbrahim, 
formed a practical allegory ; it was rational piety and 
unbridled fanaticism contending for the empire of a 
young heart. 

“Thou art not of our people,” said the Quaker, 
mournfully. 

“ No, we are not of your people,” replied Dorothy, 
with mildness, “ but we are Christians, looking up- 
ward to the same heaven with you. Doubt not that 
your boy shall meet you there, if there be a blessing 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


21 


on our tender and prayerful guidance of him. Thither, 
I trust, my own children have gone before me, for I 
also have been a mother; I am no longer so,” she 
added, in a faltering tone, “and your son will have all 
my care.” 

“ But will ye lead him in the path which his parents 
have trodden ? ” demanded the Quaker. “ Can ye 
teach him the enlightened faith which his father has 
died for, and for which I, even I, am soon to become 
an unworthy martyr ? The boy has been baptized in 
blood ; will ye keep the mark fresh and ruddy upon 
his forehead ? ” 

“ I will not deceive you,” answered Dorothy. “ If 
your child become our child, we must breed him up in 
the instruction which Heaven has imparted to us ; we 
must pray for him the prayers of our own faith ; we 
must do towards him according to the dictates of our 
own consciences, and not of yours. Were we to act 
otherwise, we should abuse your trust, even in comply- 
ing with your wishes.” 

The mother looked down upon her boy with a 
troubled countenance, and then turned her eyes up- 
ward to heaven. She seemed to pray internally, and 
the contention of her soul was evident. 

“ Friend,” she said at length to Dorothy, “ I doubt 
not that my son shall receive all earthly tenderness at 
thy hands. Nay, I will believe that even thy imper- 
fect lights may guide him to a better world, for surely 
thou art on the path thither. But thou hast spoken 
of a husband. Doth he stand here among this mul- 
titude of people? Let him come forth, for I must 
know to whom I commit this most precious trust.” 

She turned her face upon the male auditors, and 
after a momentary delay, Tobias Pearson came forth 


22 


HA WTHORNE . 


from among them. The Quaker saw the dress which 
marked his military rank, and shook her head ; but 
then she noted the hesitating air, the eyes that strug- 
gled with her own, and were vanquished; the color 
that went and came, and could find no resting-place. 
As she gazed, an unmirthful smile spread over her 
features, like sunshine that grows melancholy in some 
desolate spot. Her lips moved inaudibly, but at length 
she spake. 

“I hear it, I hear it. The voice speaketh within 
me and saith, ‘Leave thy child, Catharine, for his 
place is here, and go hence, for I have other work for 
thee. Break the bonds of natural affection, martyr 
thy love, and know that in all these things eternal 
wisdom hath its ends.’ I go, friends ; I go. Take ye 
my boy, my precious jewel. I go hence, trusting that 
all shall be well, and that even for his infant hands 
there is a labor in the vineyard.” 

She knelt down and whispered to Ilbrahim, who at 
first struggled and clung to his mother, with sobs and 
tears, but remained passive when she had kissed his 
cheek and arisen from the ground. Having held her 
hands over his head in mental prayer, she was ready 
to depart. 

“ Farewell, friends in mine extremity,” she said to 
Pearson and his wife ; “ the good deed ye have done 
me is a treasure laid up in heaven, to be returned a 
thousand-fold hereafter. And farewell ye, mine ene- 
mies, to whom it is not permitted to harm so much as 
a hair of my head, nor to stay my footsteps even for 
a moment. The day is coming when ye shall call 
upon me to witness for ye to this one sin uncommitted, 
and I will rise up and answer.” 

She turned her steps towards the door, and the men. 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


23 


who had stationed themselves to guard it, withdrew, 
and suffered her to pass. A general sentiment of pity 
overcame the virulence of religious hatred. Sancti- 
fied by her love and her affliction, she went forth, and 
all the people gazed after her till she had journeyed 
up the hill, and was lost behind its brow. She went, 
the apostle of her own unquiet heart, to renew the 
wanderings of past years. For her voice had been 
already heard in many lands of Christendom ; and she 
had pined in the cells of a Catholic Inquisition before 
she felt the lash and lay in the dungeons of the Puri- 
tans. Her mission had extended also to the followers 
of the Prophet, and from them she had received the 
courtesy and kindness which all the contending sects 
of our purer religion united to deny her. Her hus- 
band and herself had resided many months in Turkey, 
where even the Sultan’s countenance was gracious to 
them ; in that pagan land, too, was Ilbrahim’s birth- 
place, and his oriental name was a mark of gratitude 
for the good deeds of an unbeliever. 

When Pearson and his wife had thus acquired all 
the rights over Ilbrahim that could be delegated, their 
affection for him became like the memory of their 
native land, or their mild sorrow for the dead, a piece 
of the immovable furniture of their hearts. The boy, 
also, after a week or two of mental disquiet, began to 
gratify his protectors by many inadvertent proofs that 
he considered them as parents, and their house as 
home. Before the winter snows were melted, the per- 
secuted infant, the little wanderer from a remote and 
heathen country, seemed native in the New England 
cottage, and inseparable from the warmth and security 
of its hearth. Under the influence of kind treatment, 


24 


HA WTHORNE. 


and in the consciousness that he was loved, Ilbrahim’s 
demeanor lost a premature manliness, which had re- 
sulted from his earlier situation ; he became more 
childlike, and his natural character displayed itself 
with freedom. It was in many respects a beautiful 
one, yet the disordered imaginations of both his father 
and mother had perhaps propagated a certain un- 
healthiness in the mind of the boy. In his general 
state, Ilbrahim would derive enjoyment from the most 
trifling events, and from every object about him ; he 
seemed to discover rich treasures of happiness, by a 
faculty analogous to that of the witch hazel, which 
points to hidden gold where all is barren to the eye. 
His airy gayety, coming to him from a thousand 
sources, communicated itself to the family, and Ilbrar 
him was like a domesticated sunbeam, brightening 
moody countenances, and chasing away the gloom 
from the dark corners of the cottage. 

On the other hand, as the susceptibility of pleasure 
is also that of pain, the exuberant cheerfulness of the 
boy’s prevailing temper sometimes yielded to moments 
of deep depression. His sorrows could not always be 
followed up to their original source, but most fre- 
quently they appeared to flow, though Ilbrahim was 
young to be sad for such a cause, from wounded love. 
The flightiness of his mirth rendered him often guilty 
of offences against the decorum of a Puritan house- 
hold, and on these occasions he did not invariably 
escape rebuke. But the slightest word of real bitter- 
ness, which he was infallible in distinguishing from 
pretended anger, seemed to sink into his heart and 
poison all his enjoyments, till he became sensible that 
he was entirely forgiven. Of the malice, which gen- 
erally accompanies a superfluity of sensitiveness, libra- 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


25 


him was altogether destitute : when trodden upon, he 
would not turn; when wounded, he could hut die. 
His mind was wanting in the stamina for self-support ; 
it was a plant that would twine, beautifully round 
something stronger than itself, but if repulsed, or torn 
away, it had no choice but to wither on the ground. 
Dorothy’s acuteness taught her that severity would 
crush the spirit of the child, and she nurtured him 
with the gentle care of one who handles a butterfly. 
Her husband manifested an equal affection, although 
it grew daily less productive of familiar caresses. 

The feelings of the neighboring people, in regard to 
the Quaker infant and his protectors, had not under- 
gone a favorable change, in spite of the momentary 
triumph which the desolate mother had obtained over 
their sympathies. The scorn and bitterness, of which 
he was the object, were very grievous to Ilbrahim, es- 
pecially when any circumstance made him sensible 
that the children, his equals in age, partook of the 
enmity of their parents. His tender and social nature 
had already overflowed in attachments to everything 
about him, and still there was a residue of unappro- 
priated love, which he yearned to bestow upon the 
little ones who were taught to hate him. As the warm 
days of spring came on, Ilbrahim was accustomed to 
remain for hours, silent and inactive, within hearing 
of the children’s voices at their play ; yet, with his 
usual delicacy of feeling, he avoided their notice, and 
would flee and hide himself from the smallest individ- 
ual among them. Chance, however, at length seemed 
to open a medium of communication between his heart 
and theirs ; it was by means of a boy about two years 
older than Ilbrahim, who was injured by a fall from 
a tree in the vicinity of Pearson’s habitation. As the 


26 


HA WTHORNE. 


sufferer’s own home was at some distance, Dorothy 
willingly received him under her roof, and became his 
tender and careful nurse. 

Ilbrahim was the unconscious possessor of much 
skill in physiognomy, and it would have deterred him, 
in other circumstances, from attempting to make a 
friend of this boy. The countenance of the latter im- 
mediately impressed a beholder disagreeably, but it 
required some examination to discover that the cause 
was a very slight distortion of the mouth, and the ir- 
regular, broken line, and near approach of the eye- 
brows. Analogous, perhaps, to these trifling deformi- 
ties, was an almost imperceptible twist of every joint, 
and the uneven prominence of the breast ; forming a 
body, regular in its general outline, but faulty in al- 
most all its details. The disposition of the boy was 
sullen and reserved, and the village schoolmaster stig- 
matized him as obtuse in intellect ; although, at a 
later period of life, he evinced ambition and very pe- 
culiar talents. But whatever might be his personal 
or moral irregularities, Ilbrahim’ s heart seized upon, 
and clung to him, from the moment that he was 
brought wounded into the cottage ; the child of perse- 
cution seemed to compare his own fate with that of 
the sufferer, and to feel that even different modes of 
misfortune had created a sort of relationship between 
them. Food, rest, and the fresh air, for which he lan- 
guished, were neglected ; he nestled continually by the 
bedside of the little stranger, and, with a fond jeal- 
ousy, endeavored to be the medium of all the cares 
that were bestowed upon him. As the boy became 
convalescent, Ilbrahim contrived games suitable to 
his situation, or amused him by a faculty which he 
had perhaps breathed in with the air of his barbaric 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


27 


birthplace. It was that of reciting imaginary adven- 
tures, on the spur of the moment, and apparently in 
inexhaustible succession. His tales were of course 
monstrous, disjointed, and without aim ; but they were 
curious on account of a vein of human tenderness 
which ran through them all, and was like a sweet, 
familiar face, encountered in the midst of wild and 
unearthly scenery. The auditor paid much attention 
to these romances, and sometimes interrupted them by 
brief remarks upon the incidents, displaying shrewd- 
ness above his years, mingled with a moral obliquity 
which grated very harshly against Ilbrahim’s instinc- 
tive rectitude. Nothing, however, could arrest the 
progress of the latter’s affection, and there were many 
proofs that it met with a response from the dark and 
stubborn nature on which it was lavished. The boy’s 
parents at length removed him, to complete his cure 
under their own roof. 

Ilbrahim did not- visit his new friend after his de- 
parture ; but he made anxious and continual inquiries 
respecting him, and informed himself of the day when 
he was to reappear among his playmates. On a pleas- 
ant summer afternoon, the children of the neighbor- 
hood had assembled in the little forest-crowned amphi- 
theatre behind the meeting-house, and the recovering 
invalid was there, leaning on a staff. The glee of a 
score of untainted bosoms was heard in light and airy 
voices, which danced among the trees like sunshine 
become audible ; the grown men of this weary world, 
as they journeyed by the spot, marvelled why life, be- 
ginning in such brightness, should proceed in gloom ; 
and their hearts, or their imaginations, answered them 
and said, that the bliss of childhood gushes from its 
innocence. But it happened that an unexpected addi- 


28 


HA WTHORNE. 


tion was made to the heavenly little band. It was 
Ilbrahim, who came towards the children with a look 
of sweet confidence on his fair and spiritual face, as 
if, having manifested his love to one of them, he had 
no longer to fear a repulse from their society. A 
hush came over their mirth the moment they beheld 
him, and they stood whispering to each other while he 
drew nigh ; but, all at once, the devil of their fathers 
entered into the unbreeched fanatics, and sending up 
a fierce, shrill cry, they rushed upon the poor Quaker 
child. In an instant, he was the centre of a brood of 
baby-fiends, who lifted sticks against him, pelted him 
with stones, and displayed an instinct of destruction 
far more loathsome than the bloodthirstiness of man- 
hood. 

The invalid, in the meanwhile, stood apart from the 
tumult, crying out with a loud voice, “Fear not, Ilbra- 
him, come hither and take my hand ; ” and his un- 
happy friend endeavored to obey him. After watch- 
ing the victim’s struggling approach with a calm smile 
and unabashed eye, the foul-hearted little villain lifted 
his staff and struck Ilbrahim on the mouth, so forci- 
bly that the blood issued in a stream. The poor child’s 
arms had been raised to guard his head from the storm 
of blows ; but now he dropped them at once. His per- 
secutors beat him down, trampled upon him, dragged 
him by his long, fair locks, and Ilbrahim was on the 
point of becoming as veritable a martyr as ever en- 
tered bleeding into heaven. The uproar, however, 
attracted the notice of a few neighbors, who put them- 
selves to the trouble of rescuing the little heretic, and 
of conveying him to Pearson’s door. 

Ilbrahim’ s bodily harm was severe, but long and 
careful nursing accomplished his recovery ; the injury 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


29 


done to his sensitive spirit was more serious, though 
not so visible. Its signs were principally of a negative 
character, and to be discovered only by those who had 
previously known him. His gait was thenceforth slow, 
even, and unvaried by the sudden bursts of sprightlier 
motion, which had once corresponded to his overflow- 
ing gladness; his countenance was heavier, and its 
former play of expression, the dance of sunshine re- 
flected from moving water, was destroyed by the cloud 
over his existence ; his notice was attracted in a far 
less degree by passing events, and he appeared to find 
greater difficulty in comprehending what was new to 
him than at a happier period. A stranger, founding 
his judgment upon these circumstances, would have 
said that the dulness of the child’s intellect widely 
contradicted the promise of his features ; but the secret 
was in the direction of Ilbrahim’s thoughts, which 
were brooding within him when they should naturally 
have been wandering abroad. An attempt of Dorothy 
to revive his former sportiveness was the single occa- 
sion on which his quiet demeanor yielded to a violent 
display of grief ; he burst into passionate weeping, and 
ran and hid himself, for his heart had become so mis- 
erably sore that even the hand of kindness tortured 
it like fire. Sometimes, at night and probably in his 
dreams, he was heard to cry “ Mother ! Mother ! ” as 
if her place, which a stranger had supplied while II- 
brahim was happy, admitted of no substitute in his ex- 
treme affliction. Perhaps, among the many life-weary 
wretches then upon the earth, there was not one who 
combined innocence and misery like this poor, broken- 
hearted infant, so soon the victim of his own heavenly 
nature. 

While this melancholy change had taken place in 


30 


HA WTHORNE. 


Ilbrahim, one of an earlier origin and of different 
character had come to its perfection in his adopted 
father. The incident with which this tale commences 
found Pearson in a state of religious dulness, yet men- 
tally disquieted, and longing for a more fervid faith 
than he possessed. The first effect of his kindness to 
Ilbrahim was to produce a softened feeling, and incip- 
ient love for the child’s whole sect; but joined to this, 
and resulting perhaps from self-suspicion, was a proud 
and ostentatious contempt of all their tenets and prac- 
tical extravagances. In the course of much thought, 
however, for the subject struggled irresistibly into his 
mind, the foolishness of the doctrine began to be less 
evident, and the points which had particularly offended 
his reason assumed another aspect, or vanished entirely 
away. The work within him appeared to go on even 
while he slept, and that which had been a doubt, when 
he lay down to rest, would often hold the place of 
a truth, confirmed by some forgotten demonstration, 
when he recalled his thoughts in the morning. But 
while he was thus becoming assimilated to the enthusi- 
asts, his contempt, in nowise decreasing towards them, 
grew very fierce against himself ; he imagined, also, 
that every face of his acquaintance wore a sneer, and 
that every word addressed to him was a gibe. Such 
was his state of mind at the period of Ilbrahim’ s mis- 
fortune ; and the emotions consequent upon that event 
completed the change, of which the child had been the 
original instrument. 

In the mean time, neither the fierceness of the per- 
secutors, nor the infatuation of their victims, had de- 
creased. The dungeons were never empty ; the streets 
of almost every village echoed daily with the lash ; the 
life of a woman, whose mild and Christian spirit no 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


81 


cruelty could embitter, had been sacrificed ; and more 
innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands that were 
so often raised in prayer. Early after the Restoration, 
the English Quakers represented to Charles II. that 
a “ vein of blood was open in his dominions ; ” but 
though the displeasure of the voluptuous king was 
roused, his interference was not prompt. And now 
the tale must stride forward over many months, leav- 
ing Pearson to encounter ignominy and misfortune ; 
his wife to a firm endurance of a thousand sorrows ; 
poor Ilbrahim to pine and droop like a cankered rose- 
bud ; his mother to wander on a mistaken errand, neg- 
lectful of the holiest trust which can be committed to 
a woman. 

A winter evening, a night of storm, had darkened 
over Pearson’s habitation, and there were no cheerful 
faces to drive the gloom from his broad hearth. The 
fire, it is true, sent forth a glowing heat and a ruddy 
light, and large logs, dripping with half-melted snow, 
lay ready to be cast upon the embers. But the apart- 
ment was saddened in its aspect by the absence of 
much of the homely wealth which had once adorned 
it ; for the exaction of repeated fines, and his own 
neglect of temporal affairs, had greatly impoverished 
the owner. And with the furniture of peace, the im- 
plements of war had likewise disappeared ; the sword 
was broken, the helm and cuirass were cast away for- 
ever ; the soldier had done with battles, and might not 
lift so much as his naked hand to guard his head. 
But the Holy Book remained, and the table on which 
it rested was drawn before the fire, while two of the 
persecuted sect sought comfort from its pages. 

He who listened, while the other read, was the 


32 


HA WTHORNE. 


master of the house, now emaciated in form, and al- 
tered as to the expression and healthiness of his coun- 
tenance; for his mind had dwelt too long among 
visionary thoughts, and his body had been worn by 
imprisonment and stripes. The hale and weather- 
beaten old man who sat beside him had sustained less 
injury from a far longer course of the same mode of 
life. In person he was tall and dignified, and, which 
alone would have made him hateful to the Puritans, 
his gray locks fell from beneath the broad-brimmed 
hat, and rested on his shoulders. As the old man read 
the sacred page the snow drifted against the windows, 
or eddied in at the crevices of the door, while a blast 
kept laughing in the chimney, and the blaze leaped 
fiercely up to seek it. And sometimes, when the wind 
struck the hill at a certain angle, and swept down by 
the cottage across the wintry plain, its voice was the 
most doleful that can be conceived ; it came as if the 
Past, were speaking, as if the Dead had contributed 
each a whisper, as if the Desolation of Ages were 
breathed in that one lamenting sound. 

The Quaker at length closed the book, retaining 
however his hand between the pages which he had 
been reading, while he looked steadfastly at Pearson. 
The attitude and features of the latter might have 
indicated the endurance of bodily pain ; he leaned 
his forehead on his hands, his teeth were firmly closed, 
and his frame was tremulous at intervals with a ner- 
vous agitation. 

“ Friend Tobias,” inquired the old man, compas- 
sionately, “ hast thou found no comfort in these many 
blessed passages of Scripture ? ” 

“ Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar 
off and indistinct,” replied Pearson without lifting his 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


33 


eyes. “Yea, ancl when I have hearkened carefully 
the words seemed cold and lifeless, and intended for 
another and a lesser grief than mine. Remove the 
book,” he added, in a tone of sullen bitterness. “ I 
have no part in its consolations, and they do but fret 
my sorrow the more.” 

“ Nay, feeble brother, be not as one who hath never 
known the light,” said the elder Quaker earnestly, 
but with mildness. “Art thou he that wouldst be 
content to give all, and endure all, for conscience’ 
sake ; desiring even peculiar trials, that thy faith 
might be purified and thy heart weaned from worldly 
desires? And wilt thou sink beneath an affliction 
which happens alike to them that have their portion 
here below, and to them that lay up treasure in 
heaven ? Faint not, for thy burden is yet light.” 

“ It is heavy ! It is heavier than I can bear ! ” ex- 
claimed Pearson, with the impatience of a variable 
spirit. “ From my youth upward I have been a man 
marked out for wrath; and year by year, yea, day 
after day, I have endured sorrows such as others 
know not in their lifetime. And now I speak not of 
the love that has been turned to hatred, the honor to 
ignominy, the ease and plentifulness of all things to 
danger, want, and nakedness. All this I could have 
borne, and counted myself blessed. But when my 
heart was desolate with many losses I fixed it upon the 
child of a stranger, and he became dearer to me than 
all my buried ones ; and now he too must die as if my 
love were poison. Yerily, I am an accursed man, and 
I will lay me down in the dust and lift up my head 
no more.” 

“ Thou sinnest, brother, but it is not for me to re- 
buke thee ; for I also have had my hours of darkness, 


34 


HA W THORNE. 


wherein I have murmured against the cross,” said the 
old Quaker. He continued, perhaps in the hope of 
distracting his companion’s thoughts from his own sor- 
rows. “ Even of late was the light obscured within 
me, when the men of blood had banished me on pain 
of death, and the constables led me onward from vil- 
lage to village towards the wilderness. A strong and 
cruel hand was wielding the knotted cords ; they sunk 
deep into the flesh, and thou mightst have tracked 
every reel and totter of my footsteps by the blood that 
followed. As we went on” — 

“Have I not borne all this; and have I mur- 
mured ? ” interrupted Pearson impatiently. 

“ Nay, friend, but hear me,” continued the other. 
“ As we journeyed on, night darkened on our path, so 
that no man could see the rage of the persecutors or 
the constancy of my endurance, though Heaven for- 
bid that I should glory therein. The lights began to 
glimmer in the cottage windows, and I could discern 
the inmates as they gathered in comfort and security, 
every man with his wife and children by their own 
evening hearth. At length we came to a tract of fer- 
tile land ; in the dim light, the forest was not visible 
around it ; and behold ! there was a straw-thatched 
dwelling, which bore the very aspect of my home, far 
over the wild ocean, far in our own England. Then 
came bitter thoughts upon me ; yea, remembrances 
that were like death to my soul. The happiness of my 
early days was painted to me ; the disquiet of my man- 
hood, the altered faith of my declining years. I re- 
membered how I had been moved to go forth a wan- 
derer when my daughter, the youngest, the dearest of 
my flock, lay on her dying bed, and ” — 

“ Couldst thou obey the command at such a mo- 
ment ? ” exclaimed Pearson, shuddering. 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


35 


“Yea, yea,” replied the old man hurriedly. “1 was 
kneeling by her bedside when the voice spoke loud 
within me ; but immediately I rose, and took my staff, 
and gat me gone. Oh ! that it were permitted me to 
forget her woful look when I thus withdrew my arm, 
and left her journeying through the dark valley alone ! 
for her soul was faint, and she had leaned upon my 
prayers. Now in that night of horror I was assailed 
by the thought that I had been an erring Christian 
and a cruel parent; yea, even my daughter, with her 
pale, dying features, seemed to stand by me and whis- 
per, ‘Father, you are deceived; go home and shelter 
your gray head.’ O Thou, to whom I have looked in 
my farthest wanderings,” continued the Quaker, rais- 
ing his agitated eyes to heaven, “inflict not upon the 
bloodiest of our persecutors the unmitigated agony of 
my soul, when I believed that all I had done and suf- 
fered for Thee was at the instigation of a mocking 
fiend ! But I yielded not ; I knelt down and wrestled 
with the tempter, while the scourge bit more fiercely 
into the flesh. My prayer was heard, and I went on 
in peace and joy towards the wilderness.” 

The old man, though his fanaticism had generally 
all the calmness of reason, was deeply moved while 
reciting this tale ; and his unwonted emotion seemed 
to rebuke and keep down that of his companion. 
They sat in silence, with their faces to the fire, imag- 
ining, perhaps, in its red embers new scenes of perse- 
cution yet to be encountered. The snow still drifted 
hard against the windows, and sometimes, as the blaze 
of the logs had gradually sunk, came down the spa- 
cious chimney and hissed upon the hearth. A cautious 
footstep might now and then be heard in a neighbor- 
ing apartment, and the sound invariably drew the eyes 


86 


HA wr HORNE. 


of both Quakers to the door which led thither. When 
a fierce and riotous gust of wind had led his thoughts, 
by a natural association, to homeless travellers on such 
a night, Pearson resumed the conversation. 

“ I have well-nigh sunk under my own share of this 
trial, 5 ’ observed he, sighing heavily; “yet I would 
that it might be doubled to me, if so the child’s 
mother could be spared. Her wounds have been deep 
and many, but this will be the sorest of all.” 

“ Fear not for Catharine,” replied the old Quaker. 
“ for I know that valiant woman, and have seen how 
she can bear the cross. A mother’s heart, indeed, is 
strong in her, and may seem to contend mightily with 
her faith ; but soon she will stand up and give thanks 
that her son has been thus early an accepted sacrifice. 
The boy hath done his work, and she will feel that 
he is taken hence in kindness both to him and her. 
Blessed, blessed are they that with so little suffering 
can enter into peace ! ” 

The fitful rush of the wind was now disturbed by a 
portentous sound ; it was a quick and heavy knocking 
at the outer door. Pearson’s wan countenance grew 
paler, for many a visit of persecution had taught him 
what to dread ; the old man, on the other hand, stood 
up erect, and his glance was firm as that of the tried 
soldier who awaits his enemy. 

“ The men of blood have come to seek me,” he ob- 
served with calmness. “ They have heard how I was 
moved to return from banishment ; and now am I to 
be led to prison, and thence to death. It is an end 
I have long looked for. I will open unto them, lest 
they say, ‘ Lo, he feareth ! ’ ” 

“Nay, I will present myself before them,” said 
Pearson, with recovered fortitude. “ It may be that 


THE GENTLE BOY. 37 

they seek me alone, and know not that thou abidest 
with me.” 

“ Let us go boldly, both one and the other,” rejoined 
his companion. “ It is not fitting that thou or I should 
shrink.” 

They therefore proceeded through the entry to the 
door, which they opened, bidding the applicant “ Come 
in, in God’s name ! ” A furious blast of wind drove 
the storm into their faces, and extinguished the lamp ; 
they had barely time to discern a figure, so white from 
head to foot with the drifted snow that it seemed like 
Winter’s self, come in human shape, to seek refuge 
from its own desolation. 

44 Enter, friend, and do thy errand, be it what it 
may,” said Pearson. 44 It must needs be pressing, 
since thou comest on such a bitter night.” 

44 Peace be with this household,” said the stranger, 
when they stood on the floor of the inner apartment. 

Pearson started, the elder Quaker stirred the slum- 
bering embers of the fire till they sent up a clear and 
lofty blaze ; it was a female voice that had spoken ; it 
was a female form that shone out, cold and wintry, in 
that comfortable light. 

44 Catharine, blessed woman ! ” exclaimed the old 
man, 44 art thou come to this darkened land again ? art 
thou come to bear a valiant testimony as in former 
years ? The scourge hath not prevailed against thee, 
and from the dungeon hast thou come forth triumph- 
ant ; but strengthen, strengthen now thy heart, Cath- 
arine, for Heaven will prove thee yet this once, ere 
thou go to thy reward.” 

44 Rejoice, friends ! ” she replied. 44 Thou who hast 
long been of our people, and thou whom a little child 
hath led to us, rejoice ! Lo ! I come, the messenger 


38 


HA WTHORNE. 


of glad tidings, for the day of persecution is overpast. 
The heart of the king, even Charles, hath been moved 
in gentleness towards us, and he hath sent forth his 
letters to stay the hands of the men of blood. A ship’s 
company of our friends hath arrived at yonder town, 
and I also sailed joyfully among them.” 

As Catharine spoke, her eyes were roaming about 
the room, in search of him for whose sake security 
was dear to her. Pearson made a silent appeal to the 
old man, nor did the latter shrink from the painful 
task assigned him. 

“ Sister,” he began, in a softened yet perfectly calm 
tone, “ thou tellest us of His love, manifested in tem- 
poral good ; and now must we speak to thee of that 
selfsame love, displayed in chastenings. Hitherto, 
Catharine, thou hast been as one journeying in a 
darksome and difficult path, and leading an infant by 
the hand ; fain wouldst thou have looked heavenward 
continually, but still the cares'of that little child have 
drawn thine eyes and thy affections to the earth. 
Sister! go on rejoicing, for his tottering footsteps 
shall impede thine own no more.” 

But the unhappy mother was not thus to be con- 
soled ; she shook like a leaf, she turned white as the 
very snow that hung drifted into her hair. The firm 
old man extended his hand and held her up, keeping 
his eye upon hers, as if to repress any outbreak of 
passion. 

“ I am a woman, I am but a woman ; will He try 
me above my strength?” said Catharine very quickly, 
and almost in a whisper. “I have been wounded 
sore : I have suffered much ; many things in the body ; 
many in the mind ; crucified in myself, and in them 
that were dearest to me. Surely,” added she, with a 


THE GENTLE BOY . 


89 


long shudder, “ He hath spared me in this one thing.” 
She broke forth with sudden and irrepressible vio- 
lence. “ Tell me, man of cold heart, what has God 
done to me ? Hath He cast me down, never to rise 
again ? Hath He crushed my very heart in his hand ? 
And thou, to whom I committed my child, how hast 
thou fulfilled thy trust ? Give me back the boy, well, 
sound, alive, alive ; or earth and Heaven shall avenge 
me! ” 

The agonized shriek of Catharine was answered by 
the faint, the very faint, voice of a child. 

On this day it had become evident to Pearson, to 
his aged guest, and to Dorothy, that Ilbrahim’s brief 
and troubled pilgrimage drew near its close. The 
two former would willingly have remained by him, to 
make use of the prayers and pious discourses which 
they deemed appropriate to the time, and which, if 
they be impotent as to the departing traveller’s recep- 
tion in the world whither he goes, may at least sus- 
tain him in bidding adieu to earth. But though Ilbra- 
him uttered no complaint, he was disturbed by the 
faces that looked upon him ; so that Dorothy’s entrea- 
ties, and their own conviction that the child’s feet 
might tread heaven’s pavement and not soil it, had 
induced the two Quakers to remove. Ilbrahim then 
closed his eyes and grew calm, and, except for now 
and then a kind and low word to his nurse, might 
have been thought to slumber. As nightfall came 
on, however, and the storm began to rise, something 
seemed to trouble the repose of the boy’s mind, and 
to render his sense of hearing active and acute. If a 
passing wind lingered to shake the casement, he strove 
to turn his head towards it ; if the door jarred to and 
fro upon its hinges, he looked long and anxiously 


40 


HA WTHORNE. 


thitherward ; if the heavy voice of the old man, as he 
read the Scriptures, rose but a little higher, the child 
almost held his dying breath to listen ; if a snow-drift 
swept by the cottage, with a sound like the trailing 
of a garment, Ilbrahim seemed to watch that some 
visitant should enter. 

But, after a little time, he relinquished whatever 
secret hope had agitated him, and with one low, com- 
plaining whisper, turned his cheek upon the pillow. 
He then addressed Dorothy with his usual sweetness, 
and besought her to draw near him ; she did so, and 
Ilbrahim. took her hand in both of his, grasping it 
with a gentle pressure, as if to assure himself that he 
retained it. At intervals, and without disturbing the 
repose of his countenance, a very faint trembling 
passed over him from head to foot, as if a mild but 
somewhat cool wind had breathed upon him, and 
made him shiver. As the boy thus led her by the 
hand, in his quiet progress over the borders of eter- 
nity, Dorothy almost imagined that she could discern 
the near, though dim, delightfulness of the home he 
was about to reach ; she would not have enticed the 
little wanderer back, though she bemoaned herself 
that she must leave him and return. But just when 
Ilbrahim’ s feet were pressing on the soil of Paradise 
he heard a voice behind him, and it recalled him a few, 
few paces of the weary path which he had travelled. 
As Dorothy looked upon his features, she perceived 
that their placid expression was again disturbed ; her 
own thoughts had been so wrapped in him, that all 
sounds of the storm, and of human speech, were lost 
to her ; but when Catharine’s shriek pierced through 
the room, the boy strove to raise himself. 

“ Friend, she is come ! Open unto her ! ” cried he. 


THE GENTLE BOY. 


41 


In a moment his mother was kneeling by the bed- 
side ; she drew Ilbrahim to her bosom, and he nestled 
there, with no violence of joy, but contentedly, as if 
he were hushing himself to sleep. He looked into her 
face, and reading its agony, said, with feeble earnest- 
ness, “ Mourn not, dearest mother. I am happy now.” 
And with these words the gentle boy was de^d. 

The king’s mandate to stay the New England per- 
secutors was effectual in preventing further martyr- 
doms ; but the colonial authorities, trusting in the 
remoteness of their situation, and perhaps in the sup- 
posed instability of the royal government, shortly re- 
newed their severities in all other respects. Catha- 
rine’s fanaticism had become wilder by the sundering 
of all human ties ; and wherever a scourge was lifted 
there was she to receive the blow ; and whenever a 
dungeon was unbarred thither she came, to cast her- 
self upon the floor. But in process of time a more 
Christian spirit — a spirit of forbearance, though not 
of cordiality or approbation — began to pervade the 
land in regard to the persecuted sect. And then, 
when the rigid old Pilgrims eyed her rather in pity 
than in wrath ; when the matrons fed her with the 
fragments of their children’s food, and offered her a 
lodging on a hard and lowly bed ; when no little crowd 
of schoolboys left their sports to cast stones after the 
roving enthusiast ; then did Catharine return to Pear- 
son’s dwelling and made that her home. 

As if Ilbrahim’s sweetness yet lingered round his 
ashes; as if his gentle spirit came down from heaven 
to teach his parent a true religion, her fierce and vin- 
dictive nature was softened by the same griefs which 
had once irritated it. When the course of years had 


42 


HA WTIiORNE. 


made the features of the unobtrusive mourner familiar 
in the settlement, she became a subject of not deep, 
but general, interest ; a being on whom the otherwise 
superfluous sympathies of all might be bestowed. 
Every one spoke of her with that degree of pity 
which it is pleasant to experience; every one was 
ready to do her the little kindnesses which are not 
costly, yet manifest good will ; and when at last she 
died, a long train of her once bitter persecutors fol- 
lowed her, with decent sadness and tears that were 
not painful, to her place by Ilbrahim’s green and 
sunken grave. 


ROGER MALVIN’S BURIAL. 

One of the few incidents of Indian warfare natur- 
ally susceptible of the moonlight of romance was that 
expedition undertaken for the defence of the frontiers 
in the year 1725, which resulted in the well-remem- 
bered “ Lovell’s Fight.” Imagination, by casting cer- 
tain circumstances judicially into the shade, may see 
much to admire in the heroism of a little band who 
gave battle to twice their number in the heart of the 
enemy’s country. The open bravery displayed by 
both parties was in accordance with civilized ideas of 
valor ; and chivalry itself might not blush to record 
the deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, 
though so fatal to those who fought, was not unfor- 
tunate in its consequences to the country ; for it broke 
the strength of a tribe and conduced to the peace 
which subsisted during several ensuing years. His- 
tory and tradition are unusually minute in their me- 
morials of this affair; and the ‘captain of a scouting 
party of frontier men has acquired as actual a mili- 
tary renown as many a victorious leader of thousands. 
Some of the incidents contained in the following pages 
will be recognized, notwithstanding the substitution of 
fictitious names, by such as have heard, from old men’s 
lips, the fate of the few combatants who were in a 
condition to retreat after “ Lovell’s Fight.” 

The early sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the 
tree-tops, beneath which two weary and wounded men 


44 


HA WTHORNE. 


had stretched their limbs the night before. Their bed 
of withered oak leaves was strewn upon the small level 
space, at the foot of a rock, situated near the summit 
of one of the gentle swells by which the face of the 
country is there diversified. The mass of granite, 
rearing its smooth, flat surface fifteen or twenty feet 
above their heads, was not unlike a gigantic grave- 
stone, upon which the veins seemed to form an inscrip- 
tion in forgotten characters. On a tract of several 
acres around this rock, oaks and other hard-wood trees 
had supplied the place of the pines, which were the 
usual growth of the land ; and a young and vigorous 
sapling stood close beside the travellers. 

The severe wound of the elder man had probably 
deprived him of sleep ; for, so soon as the first ray of 
sunshine rested on the top of the highest tree, he reared 
himself painfully from his recumbent posture and sat 
erect. The deep lines of his countenance and the 
scattered gray of his hair marked him as past the 
middle age ; but his muscular frame would, but for the 
effects of his wound, have been as capable of sustain- 
ing fatigue as in the early vigor of life. Languor and 
exhaustion now sat upon his haggard features ; and the 
despairing glance which he sent forward through the 
depths of the forest proved his own conviction that his 
pilgrimage was at an end. He next turned his eyes to 
the companion who reclined by his side. The youth 
— for he had scarcely attained the years of manhood — 
lay, with his head upon his arm, in the embrace of an 
unquiet sleep, which a thrill of pain from his wounds 
seemed each moment on the point of breaking. His 
right hand grasped a musket ; and, to judge from the 
violent action of his features, his slumbers were bring- 
ing back a vision of the conflict of which he was one 


ROGER MALVIN’S BURIAL. 


45 


of the few survivors. A shout — deep and loud in his 
dreaming fancy — found its way in an imperfect mur- 
mur to his lips ; and, starting even at the slight sound 
of his own voice, he suddenly awoke. The first act 
of reviving recollection was to make anxious inquiries 
respecting the condition of his wounded fellow-travel- 
ler. The latter shook his head. 

“ Reuben, my boy,” said he, “ this rock beneath 
which we sit will serve for an old hunter’s gravestone. 
There is many and many a long mile of howling wil- 
derness before us yet ; nor would it avail me anything 
if the smoke of my own chimney were but on the 
other side of that swell of land. The Indian bullet 
was deadlier than I thought.” 

“You are weary with our three days’ travel,” replied 
the youth, “ and a little longer rest will recruit you. Sit 
you here while I search the woods for the herbs and 
roots that must be our sustenance ; and, having eaten, 
you shall lean on me, and we will turn our faces home- 
ward. I doubt not that, with my help, you can attain 
to some one of the frontier garrisons.” 

“ There is not two days’ life in me, Reuben,” said 
the other, calmly, “and I will no longer burden you 
with my useless body, when you can scarcely support 
your own. Your wounds are deep and your strength 
is failing fast ; yet, if you hasten onward alone, you 
may be preserved. For me there is no hope, and I 
will await death here.” y 

“ If it must be so, I will remain and watch by you,” 
said Reuben, resolutely. 

“ No, my son, no,” rejoined his companion. “ Let 
the wish of a dying man have weight with you ; give 
me one grasp of your hand, and get you hence. 
Think you that my last moments will be eased by the 


46 


HA WTHORHE. 


thought that I leave you to die a more lingering death ? 
I have loved you like a father, Reuben ; and at a time 
like this I should have something of a father’s author- 
ity. I charge you to be gone that I may die in peace.” 

“And because you have been a father to me, should 
I therefore leave you to perish and to lie unburied in 
the wilderness ? ” exclaimed the youth. “ No ; if your 
end be in truth approaching, I will watch by you and 
receive your parting words. I will dig a grave here by 
the rock, in which, if my weakness overcome me, we 
will rest together; or, if Heaven gives me strength, 
I will seek my way home.” 

“ In the cities and wherever men dwell,” replied the 
other, “ they bury their dead in the earth ; they hide 
them from the sight of the living ; but here, where no 
step may pass perhaps for a hundred years, wherefore 
should I not rest beneath the open sky, covered only 
by the oak leaves when the autumn winds shall strew 
them ? And for a monument, here is this gray rock, on 
which my dying hand shall carve the name of Roger 
Malvin ; and the traveller in days to come will know 
that here sleeps a hunter and a warrior. Tarry not, 
then, for a folly like this, but hasten away, if not for 
your own sake, for hers who will else be desolate.” 

Malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering voice, 
and their effect upon his companion was strongly visi- 
ble. They reminded him that there were other and 
less questionable duties than that of sharing the fate 
of a man whom his death could not benefit. Nor can 
it be affirmed that no selfish feeling strove to enter 
Reuben’s heart, though the consciousness made him 
more earnestly resist his companion’s entreaties. 

“ How terrible to wait the slow approach of death in 
this solitude ! ” exclaimed he. “ A brave man does not 


ROGER M ALVIN’S BURIAL. 


47 


shrink in the battle ; and, when friends stand round the 
bed, even women may die composedly ; but here ” — 

“ I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne,” in- 
terrupted Malvin. “ I am a man of no weak heart, 
and, if I were, there is a surer support than that of 
earthly friends. You are young, and life is dear to 
you. Your last moments will need comfort far more 
than mine ; and when you have laid me in the earth, 
and are alone, and night is settling on the forest, you 
will feel all the bitterness of the death that may now 
be escaped. But I will urge no selfish motive to your 
generous nature. Leave me for my sake, that, having 
said a prayer for your safety, I may have space to set- 
tle my account undisturbed by worldly sorrows.” 

“ And your daughter, — how shall I dare to meet 
her eye ? ” exclaimed Reuben. “ She will ask the fate 
of her father, whose life I vowed to defend with my 
own. Must I tell her that he travelled three days’ 
march with me from the field of battle and that then 
I left him to perish in the wilderness ? W ere it not 
better to lie down and die by your side than to return 
safe and say this to Dorcas ? ” 

“ Tell my daughter,” said Roger Malvin, “ that, 
though yourself sore wounded, and weak, and weary, 
you led my tottering footsteps many a mile, and left 
me only at my earnest entreaty, because I would not 
have your blood upon my soul. Tell her that through 
pain and danger you were faithful, and that, if your 
lifeblood could have saved me, it would have flowed 
to its last drop ; and tell her that you will be some- 
thing dearer than a father, and that my blessing is 
with you both, and that my dying eyes can see a long 
and pleasant path in which you will journey to- 
gether.” 


48 


HAWTHORNE. 


As Malvin spoke lie almost raised himself from the 
ground, and the energy of his concluding words seemed 
to fill the wild and lonely forest with a vision of hap- 
piness ; but, when he sank exhausted upon his bed of 
oak leaves, the light which had kindled in Reuben’s 
eye was quenched. He felt as if it were both sin and 
folly to think of happiness at such a moment. His 
companion watched his changing countenance, and 
sought with generous art to wile him to his own good. 

“ Perhaps I deceive myself in regard to the time I 
have to live,” he resumed. “ It may be that, with 
speedy assistance, I might recover of my wound. The 
foremost fugitives must, ere this, have carried tidings 
of our fatal battle to the frontiers, and parties will be 
out to succor those in like condition with ourselves. 
Should you meet one of these and guide them hither, 
who can tell but that I may sit by my own fireside 
again ? ” 

A mournful smile strayed across the features of the 
dying man as he insinuated that unfounded hope, — 
which, however, was not without its effect on Reuben. 
No merely selfish motive, nor even the desolate condi- 
tion of Dorcas, could have induced him to desert his 
companion at such a moment — but his wishes seized 
on the thought that Malvin’ s life might be preserved, 
and his sanguine nature heightened almost to cer- 
tainty the remote possibility of procuring human aid. 

“Surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope 
that friends are not far distant,” he said, half aloud. 
“ There fled one coward, unwounded, in the beginning 
of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. 
Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his 
musket at the news ; and, though no party may range 
so far into the woods as this, I shall perhaps encounter 


ROGER MALVIN’S BURIAL. 


49 


them in one day’s march. Counsel me faithfully,” he 
added, turning to Malvin, in distrust of his own mo- 
tives. 44 Were your situation mine, would you desert 
me while life remained ? ” 

44 It is now twenty years,” replied Roger Malvin, — 
sighing, however, as he secretly acknowledged the wide 
dissimilarity between the two cases, — 44 it is now 
twenty years since I escaped with one dear friend 
from Indian captivity near Montreal. We journeyed 
many days through the woods, till at length overcome 
with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down and 
besought me to leave him ; for he knew that, if I re- 
mained, we both must perish ; and, with but little hope 
of obtaining succor, I heaped a pillow of dry leaves 
beneath his head and hastened on.” 

44 And did you return in time to save him ? ” asked 
Reuben, hanging on Malvin’ s words as if they were to 
be prophetic of his own success. 

44 1 did,” answered the other. 44 1 came upon the 
camp of a hunting party before sunset of the same day. 
I guided them to the spot where my comrade was ex- 
pecting death ; and he is now a hale and hearty man 
upon his own farm, far within the frontiers, while I lie 
wounded here in the depths of the wilderness.” 

This example, powerful in affecting Reuben’s decis- 
ion, was aided, unconsciously to himself, by the hid- 
den strength of many another motive. Roger Malvin 
perceived that the victory was nearly won. 

44 Now, go, my son, and Heaven prosper you ! ” he 
said. 44 Turn not back with your friends when you 
meet them, lest your wounds and weariness overcome 
you ; but send hitherward two or three, that may be 
spared, to search for me ; and believe me, Reuben, my 
heart will be lighter with every step you take towards 


50 


HA WTHORNE. 


home.” Yet there was, perhaps, a change both in his 
countenance and voice as he spoke thus ; for, after all, 
it was a ghastly fate to be left expiring in the wilder- 
ness. 

Reuben Bourne, but half convinced that he was act- 
ing rightly, at length raised himself from the ground 
and prepared himself for his departure. And first, 
though contrary to Malvin’s wishes, he collected a stock 
of roots and herbs, which had been their only food dur- 
ing the last two days. This useless supply he placed 
within reach of the dying man, for whom, also, he swept 
together a bed of dry oak leaves. Then climbing to 
the summit of the rock, which on one side was rough 
and broken, he bent the oak sapling downward, and 
bound his handkerchief to the topmost branch. This 
precaution was not unnecessary to direct any who might 
come in search of Malvin ; for every part of the rock, 
except its broad, smooth front, was concealed at a lit- 
tle distance by the dense undergrowth of the forest. 
The handkerchief had been the bandage of a wound 
upon Reuben’s arm ; and, as he bound it to the tree, 
he vowed by the blood that stained it that he would re- 
turn, either to save his companion’s life or to lay his 
body in the grave. He then descended, and stood, 
with downcast eyes, to receive Roger Malvin’s part- 
ing words. 

The experience of the latter suggested much and 
minute advice respecting the youth’s journey through 
the trackless forest. Upon this subject he spoke with 
calm earnestness, as if he were sending Reuben to the 
battle or the chase while he himself remained secure 
at home, and not as if the human countenance that 
was about to leave him were the last he would ever 
behold. But his firmness was shaken before he con- 
cluded. 


ROGER HALVIN' S BURIAL . 


51 


“ Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my last 
prayer shall be for her and you. Bid her to have no 
hard thoughts because you left me here,” — Reuben’s 
heart smote him, — “for that your life would not have 
weighed with you if its sacrifice could have done me 
good. She will marry you after she has mourned a 
little while for her father ; and Heaven grant you long 
and happy days, and may your children’s children stand 
round your death bed ! And, Reuben,” added he, as 
the weakness of mortality made its way at last, “ re- 
turn, when your wounds are healed and your weari- 
ness refreshed, — return to this wild rock, and lay my 
bones in the grave, and say a prayer over them.” 

An almost superstitious regard, arising perhaps from 
the customs of the Indians, whose war was with the 
dead as well as the living, was paid by the frontier in- 
habitants to the rites of sepulture ; and there are many 
instances of the sacrifice of life in the attempt to bury 
those who had fallen by the “ sword of the wilderness.” 
Reuben, therefore, felt the full importance of the prom- 
ise which he most solemnly made to return and per- 
form Roger Malvin’s obsequies. It was remarkable 
that the latter, speaking his whole heart in his parting 
words, no longer endeavored to persuade the youth that 
even the speediest succor might avail to the preserva- 
tion of his life. Reuben was internally convinced that 
he should see Malvin’s living face no more. His gen- 
erous nature would fain have delayed him, at whatever 
risk, till the dying scene were past ; but the desire of 
existence and the hope of happiness had strengthened 
in his heart, and he was unable to resist them. 

“ It is enough,” said Roger Malvin, having listened 
to Reuben’s promise. “ Go, and God speed you ! ” 

The youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and 


52 


HA WTHORNE. 


was departing. His slow and faltering steps, however, 
had borne him but a little way before Malvin’s voice 
recalled him. 

“ Reuben, Reuben,” said he, faintly ; and Reuben 
returned and knelt down by the dying man. 

“ Raise* me, and let me lean against the rock,” was 
his last request. “My face will be turned towards 
home, and I shall see you a moment longer as you 
pass among the trees.” 

Reuben, having made the desired alteration in his 
companion’s posture, again began his solitary pilgrim- 
age. He walked more hastily at first than was consis- 
tent with his strength; for a sort of guilty feeling, 
which sometimes torments men in their most justifiable 
acts, caused him to seek concealment from Malvin’s 
eyes ; but after he had trodden far upon the rustling 
forest leaves he crept back, impelled by a wild and 
painful curiosity, and, sheltered by the earthy roots of 
an uptorn tree, gazed earnestly at the desolate man. 
The morning sun was unclouded, and the trees and 
shrubs imbibed the sweet air of the month of May ; 
yet there seemed a gloom on Nature’s face, as if she 
sympathized with mortal pain and sorrow. Roger 
Malvin’s hands were uplifted in a fervent prayer, some 
of the words of which stole through the stillness of the 
woods and entered Reuben’s heart, torturing it with an 
unutterable pang. They were the broken accents of a 
petition for his own happiness and that of Dorcas ; and, 
as the youth listened, conscience, or something in its 
similitude, pleaded strongly with him to return and lie 
down again by the rock. He felt how hard was the 
doom of the kind and generous being whom he had 
deserted in his extremity. Death would come like the 
slow approach of a corpse, stealing gradually towards 


ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL. 


53 


him through the forest, and showing its ghastly and 
motionless features from behind a nearer and yet a 
nearer tree. But such must have been Reuben’s own 
fate had he tarried another sunset ; and who shall im- 
pute blame to him if he shrink from so useless a sacri- 
fice? As he gave a parting look, a breeze waved the 
little banner upon the sapling oak and reminded Reu- 
ben of his vow. 


Many circumstances combined to retard the wounded 
traveller in his way to the frontiers. On the second 
day the clouds, gathering densely over the sky, pre- 
cluded the possibility of regulating his course by the 
position of the sun ; and he knew not but that every 
effort of his almost exhausted strength was removing 
him farther from the home he sought. His scanty sus- 
tenance was supplied by the berries and other sponta- 
neous products of the forest. Herds of deer, it is true, 
sometimes bounded past him, and partridges frequently 
whirred up before his footsteps; but his ammunition 
had been expended in the fight, and he had no means 
of slaying them. His wounds, irritated by the constant 
exertion in which lay the only hope of life, wore away 
his strength and at intervals confused his reason. But, 
even in the wanderings of intellect, Reuben’s young 
heart clung strongly to existence ; and it was only 
through absolute incapacity of motion that he at last sank 
down beneath a tree, compelled there to await death. 

In this situation he was discovered by a party who, 
upon the first intelligence of the fight, had been de- 
spatched to the relief of the survivors. They conveyed 
him to the nearest settlement, which chanced to be that 
of his own residence. 

Dorcas, in the simplicity of the olden time, watched by 


54 


HA WTHORNE. 


the bedside of her wounded lover, and administered all 
those comforts that are in the sole gift of woman’s heart 
and hand. During several days Reuben’s recollection 
strayed drowsily among the perils and hardships through 
which he had passed, and he was incapable of return- 
ing definite answers to the inquiries with which many 
were eager to harass him. No authentic particulars 
of the battle had yet been circulated ; nor could moth- 
ers, wives, and children tell whether their loved ones 
were detained by captivity or by the stronger chain of 
death; Dorcas nourished her apprehensions in silence 
till one afternoon when Reuben awoke from an unquiet 
sleep, and seemed to recognize her more perfectly than 
at any previous time. She saw that his intellect had 
become composed, and she could no longer restrain her 
filial anxiety. 

“ My father, Reuben ? ” she began ; but the change 
in her lover’s countenance made her pause. 

The youth shrank as if with a bitter pain, and the 
blood gushed vividly into his wan and hollow cheeks. 
His first impulse was to cover his face ; but, appar- 
ently with a desperate effort, he half raised himself 
and spoke vehemently, defending himself against an 
imaginary accusation. 

“ Your father was sore wounded in the battle, Dor- 
cas ; and he bade me not burden myself with him, but 
only to lead him to the lakeside, that he might quench 
his thirst and die. But I would not desert the old man 
in his extremity, and, though bleeding myself, I sup- 
ported him ; I gave him half my strength, and led him 
away with me. For three days we journeyed on to- 
gether, and your father was sustained beyond my hopes, 
but, awaking at sunrise on the fourth day, I found him 
faint and exhausted ; he was unable to proceed ; his 
life had ebbed away fast ; and ” — 


ROGER MALVIN’ S BURIAL. 


55 


“ He died ! ” exclaimed Dorcas, faintly. 

Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his 
selfish love of life had hurried him away before her 
father’s fate was decided. He spoke not; he only 
bowed his head ; and, between shame and exhaustion, 
sank back and hid his face in the pillow. Dorcas wept 
when her fears were thus confirmed ; but the shock, as 
it had been long anticipated, was on that account the 
less violent. 

“You dug a grave for my poor father in the wilder- 
ness, Reuben ? v ’ was the question by which her filial 
piety manifested itself. 

“ My hands were weak ; but I did what I could,” 
replied the youth in a smothered tone. “ There stands 
a noble tombstone above his head; and I would to 
Heaven I slept as soundly as he ! ” 

Dorcas, perceiving the wildness of his latter words, 
inquired no further at the time ; but her heart found 
ease in the thought that Roger Malvin had not lacked 
such funeral rites as it was possible to bestow. The 
tale of Reuben’s courage and fidelity lost nothing when 
she communicated it to her friends ; and the poor 
youth, tottering from his sick chamber to breathe the 
sunny air, experienced from every tongue the miserable 
and humiliating torture of unmerited praise. All ac- 
knowledged that he might worthily demand the hand of 
the fair maiden to whose father he had been “ faithful 
unto death ; ” and, as my tale is not of love, it shall 
suffice to say that in the space of a few months Reu- 
ben became the husband of Dorcas Malvin. During 
the marriage ceremony the bride was covered with 
blushes, but the bridegroom’s face was pale. 

There was now in the breast of Reuben Bourne an 
incommunicable thought — something which he was to 


56 


HA WTIiORNE. 


conceal most heedfully from her whom he most loved 
and trusted. He regretted, deeply and bitterly, the 
moral cowardice that had restrained his words when 
he was about to disclose the truth to Dorcas; but 
pride, the fear of losing her affection, the dread of 
universal scorn, forbade him to rectify this falsehood. 
He. felt that for leaving Roger Malvin he deserved 
no censure. His presence, the gratuitous sacrifice of 
his own life, would have added only another and a 
needless agony to the last moments of the dying man ; 
but concealment had imparted to a justifiable act 
much of the secret effect of guilt ; and Reuben, while 
reason told him that he had done right, experienced 
in no small degree the mental horrors which punish 
the perpetrator of undiscovered crime. By a certain 
association of ideas, he at times almost imagined him- 
self a murderer. For years, also, a thought would 
occasionally recur, which, though he perceived all its 
folly and extravagance, he had not power to banish 
from his mind. It was a haunting and torturing fan- 
cy that his father-in-law was yet sitting at the foot 
of the rock, on the withered forest leaves, alive, and 
awaiting his pledged assistance. These mental decep- 
tions, however, came and went, nor did he ever mis- 
take them for realities ; but in the calmest and clear- 
est moods of his mind he was conscious that he had a 
deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse 
was calling to him out of the wilderness. Yet such 
was the consequence of his prevarication that he could 
not obey the call. It was now too late to require the 
assistance of Roger Malvin’ s friends in performing 
his long - deferred sepulture ; and superstitious fears, 
of which none were more susceptible than the peo- 
ple of the outward settlements, forbade Reuben to go 


ROGER M ALVIN'S BURIAL. 


57 


alone. Neither did he know where in the pathless 
and illimitable forest to seek that smooth and lettered 
rock at the base of which the body lay : his remem- 
brance of every portion of his travel thence was indis- 
tinct, and the latter part had left no impression upon 
his min d. There was, however, a continual impulse, 
a voice audible only to himself, commanding him to 
go forth and redeem his vow ; and he had a strange 
impression that, were he to make the trial, he would 
be led straight to Malvin’s bones. But year after 
year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. 
His one secret thought became like a chain binding 
down his spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his 
heart ; and he was transformed into a sad and down- 
cast yet irritable man. 

In the course of a few years after their marriage 
changes began to be visible in the external prosperity 
of Reuben and Dorcas. The only riches of the former 
had been his stout heart and strong arm ; but the lat- 
ter, her father’s sole heiress, had made her husband 
master of a farm, under older cultivation, larger, and 
better stocked than most of the frontier establishments. 
Reuben Bourne, however, was a neglectful husband- 
man ; and, while the lands of the other settlers became 
annually more fruitful, his deteriorated in the same 
proportion. The discouragements to agriculture were 
greatly lessened by the cessation of Indian war, dur- 
ing which men held the plough in one hand and the 
musket in the other, and were fortunate if the products 
of their dangerous labor were not destroyed, either in 
the field or in the barn, by the savage enemy. But 
Reuben did not profit by the altered condition of the 
country ; nor can it be denied that his intervals of 
industrious attention to his affairs were but scantily 


58 


HA WTHORNE. 


rewarded with success. The irritability by which he 
had recently become distinguished was another cause 
of his declining prosperity, as it occasioned frequent 
quarrels in his unavoidable intercourse with the neigh- 
boring settlers. The results of these were innumer- 
able lawsuits 5 for the people of New England, in the 
earliest stages and wildest circumstances of the coun- 
try, adopted, whenever attainable, the legal mode of 
deciding their differences. To be brief, the world did 
not go well with Reuben Bourne ; and, though not 
till many years after his marriage, he was finally a 
ruined man, with but one remaining expedient against 
the evil fate that had pursued him. He was to throw 
sunlight into some deep recess of the forest, and seek 
subsistence from the virgin bosom of the wilderness. 

The only child of Reuben and Dorcas was a son, 
now arrived at the age of fifteen years, beautifid in 
youth, arid giving promise of a glorious manhood. He 
was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel 
in, the wild accomplishments of frontier life. His foot 
was fleet, his aim true, his apprehension quick, his 
heart glad and high ; and all who anticipated the re- 
turn of Indian war spoke of Cyrus Bourne as a future 
leader in the land. The boy was loved by his father 
with a deep and silent strength, as if whatever was 
good and happy in his own nature had been transferred 
to his child, carrying his affections with it. Even Dor- 
cas, though loving and beloved, was far less dear to 
him ; for Reuben’s secret thoughts and insulated emo- 
tions had gradually made him a selfish man, and he 
could no longer love deeply except where he saw or 
imagined some reflection or likeness of his own mind. 
In Cyrus he recognized what he had himself been in 
other days ; and at intervals he seemed to partake of 


ROGER MARVIN'S BURIAL. 


59 


the boy’s spirit, and to be revived with a fresh and 
happy life. Reuben was accompanied by his son in 
the expedition, for the purpose of selecting a tract of 
land and felling and burning the timber, which nec- 
essarily preceded the removal of the household gods. 
Two months of autumn were thus occupied, after which 
Reuben Bourne and his young hunter returned to spend 
their last winter in the settlements. 


It was early in the month of May that the little fam- 
ily snapped asunder whatever tendrils of affections had 
clung to inanimate objects, and bade farewell to the 
few who, in the blight of fortune, called themselves 
their friends. The sadness of the parting moment 
had, to each of the pilgrims, its peculiar alleviations. 
Reuben, a moody man, and misanthropic because un- 
happy, strode onward with his usual stern brow and 
downcast eye, feeling few regrets and disdaining to ac- 
knowledge any. Dorcas, while she wept abundantly 
over the broken ties by which her simple and affection- 
ate nature had bomid itself to everything, felt that the 
inhabitants of her inmost heart moved on with her, and 
that all else would be supplied wherever she might go. 
And the boy dashed one tear-drop from his eye, and 
thought of the adventurous pleasures of the untrodden 
forest. 

Oh, who, in the enthusiasm of a daydream, has not 
wished that he were a wanderer in a world of summer 
wilderness, with one fair and gentle being hanging 
lightly on his arm ? In youth his free and exulting 
step would know no barrier but the rolling ocean or the 
snow-topped mountains ; calmer manhood would choose 
a home where Nature had strewn a double wealth in the 
vale of some transparent stream ; and when hoary age, 


60 


HA WTHORNE. 


after long, long years of that pure life, stole on and 
found him there, it would find him the father of a race, 
the patriarch of a people, the founder of a mighty na- 
tion yet to be. When death, like the sweet Seep which 
we welcome after a day of happiness, came over him, 
his far descendants would mourn over the venerated 
dust. Enveloped by tradition in mysterious attributes, 
the men of future generations would call him godlike ; 
and remote posterity would see him standing, dimly 
glorious, far up the valley of a hundred centuries. 

The tangled and gloomy forest through which the 
personages of my tale were wandering differed widely 
from the dreamer’s land of fantasy; yet there was 
something in their way of life that Nature asserted as 
her own, and the gnawing cares which went with them 
from the world were all that now obstructed their hap- 
piness. One stout and shaggy steed, the bearer of all 
their wealth, did not shrink from the added weight of 
Dorcas ; although her hardy breeding sustained her, 
during the latter part of each day’s journey, by her 
husband’s side. Reuben and his son, their muskets on 
their shoulders and their axes slung behind them, kept 
an unwearied pace, each watching with a hunter’s eye 
for the game that supplied their food. When hunger 
bade, they halted and prepared their meal on the bank 
of some unpolluted forest brook, which, as they knelt 
down with thirsty lips to drink, murmured a sweet un- 
willingness, like a maiden at love’s first kiss. They 
slept beneath a hut of branches, and awoke at peep of 
light refreshed for the toils of another day. Dorcas 
and the boy went on joyously, and even Reuben’s spirit 
shone at intervals with an outward gladness ; but in- 
wardly there was a cold, cold sorrow, which he com- 
pared to the snowdrifts lying deep in the glens and liol- 


ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL. 


61 


lows of the rivulets while the leaves were brightly green 
above. 

Cyrus Bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel of 
the woods to observe that his father did not adhere to 
the course they had pursued in their expedition of the 
preceding autumn. They were now keeping farther to 
the north, striking out more directly from the settle- 
ments, and into a region of which savage beasts and 
savage men were as yet the sole possessors. The boy 
sometimes hinted his opinions upon the subject, and 
Reuben listened attentively, and once or twice altered 
the direction of their march in accordance with his 
son’s counsel ; but, having so done, he seemed ill at 
ease. His quick and wandering glances were sent for j 
ward, apparently in search of enemies lurking behind 
the tree trunks ; and, seeing nothing there, he would 
cast his eyes backwards as if in fear of some pursuer. 
Cyrus, perceiving that his father gradually resumed 
the old direction, forbore to interfere ; nor, though 
something began to weigh upon his heart, did his ad- 
venturous nature permit him to regret the increased 
length and the mystery of their way. 

On the afternoon of the fifth day they halted, and 
made their simple encampment nearly an hour before 
sunset. The face of the country, for the last few miles, 
had been diversified by swells of land resembling huge 
waves of a petrified sea ; and in one of the correspond- 
ing hollows, a wild and romantic spot, had the family 
reared their hut and kindled their fire. There is some- 
thing chilling, and yet heart-warming, in the thought 
of these three, united by strong bands of love and in- 
sulated from all that breathe beside. The dark and 
gloomy pines looked down upon them, and, as the wind 
swept through their tops, a pitying sound was heard in 


62 


HA WTHORNE. 


the forest ; or did those old trees groan in fear that 
men were come to lay the axe to their roots at last ? 
Reuben and his son, while Dorcas made ready their 
meal, proposed to wander out in search of game, of 
which that day’s march had afforded no supply. The 
boy, promising not to quit the vicinity of the encamp- 
ment, bounded off with a step as light and elastic as 
that of the deer he hoped to slay ; while his father, 
feeling a transient happiness as he gazed after him, was 
about to pursue an opposite direction. Dorcas, in the 
meanwhile, had seated herself near their fire of fallen 
branches, upon the mossgrown and mouldering trunk 
of a tree uprooted years before. Her employment, 
diversified by an occasional glance at the pot, now be- 
ginning to simmer over the blaze, was the perusal of 
the current year’s Massachusetts Almanac, which, with 
the exception of an old black-letter Bible, comprised all 
the literary wealth of the family. None pay a greater 
regard to arbitrary divisions of time than those who 
are excluded from society; and Dorcas mentioned, as 
if the information were of importance, that it was now 
the twelfth of May. Her husband started. 

“ The twelfth of May ! I should remember it well,” 
muttered he, while many thoughts occasioned a mo- 
mentary confusion in his mind. “ Where am I ? 
Whither am I wandering? Where did I leave him?” 

Dorcas, too well accustomed to her husband’s way- 
ward moods to note any peculiarity of demeanor, now 
laid aside the almanac and addressed him in that 
mournful tone which the tender hearted appropriate 
to griefs long cold and dead. 

“ It was near this time of the month, eighteen years 
ago, that my poor father left this world for a better. 
He had a kind arm to hold his head and a kind voice 


ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL . 


68 


to cheer him, Reuben, in his last moments ; and the 
thought of the faithful care you took of him has com- 
forted me many a time since. Oh, death would have 
been awful to a solitary man in a wild place like 
this ! ” 

“Pray Heaven, Dorcas,” said Reuben, in a broken 
voice, — “ pray Heaven that neither of us three dies 
solitary and lies unburied in this howling wilderness ! ” 
And he hastened away, leaving her to watch the fire 
beneath the gloomy pines. 

Reuben Bourne’s rapid pace gradually slackened as 
the pang, unintentionally inflicted by the words of 
Dorcas, became less acute. Many strange reflections, 
however, thronged upon him; and, straying onward 
rather like a sleep walker than a hunter, it was at- 
tributable to no care of his own that his devious 
course kept him in the vicinity of the encampment. 
His steps were imperceptibly led almost in a circle; 
nor did he observe that he was on the verge of a tract 
of land heavily timbered, but not with pine-trees. 
The place of the latter was here supplied by oaks 
and other of the harder woods ; and around their 
roots clustered a dense and bushy under-growth, leav- 
ing, however, barren spaces between the trees, thick 
strewn with withered leaves. Whenever the rustling 
of the branches or the creaking of the trunks made 
a sound, as if the forest were waking from slumber, 
Reuben instinctively raised the musket that rested on 
his arm, and cast a quick, sharp glance on every side ; 
but, convinced by a partial observation that no ani- 
mal was near, he would again give himself up to his 
thoughts. He was musing on the strange influence 
that had led him away from his premeditated course, 
and so far into the depths of the wilderness. Unable 


64 


HA WTHORNE. 


to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his 
motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural 
voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural 
power had obstructed his retreat. He trusted that it 
was Heaven’s intent to afford him an opportunity of 
expiating his sin ; he hoped that he might find the 
hones so long unburied ; and that, having laid the 
earth over them, peace would throw its sunlight into 
the sepulchre of his heart. From these thoughts he 
was aroused by a rustling in the forest at some dis- 
tance from the spot to which he had wandered. Per- 
ceiving the motion of some object behind a thick veil 
of undergrowth, he fired, with the instinct of a hunter 
and the aim of a practised marksman. A low moan, 
which told his success, and by which even animals 
can express their dying agony, was unheeded by Reu- 
ben Bourne. What were the recollections now break- 
ing upon him ? 

The thicket into which Reuben had fired was near 
the summit of a swell of land, and was clustered 
around the base of a rock, which, in the shape and 
smoothness of one of its surfaces, was not unlike a 
gigantic gravestone. As if reflected in a mirror, 
its likeness was in Reuben’s memory. He even rec- 
ognized the veins which seemed to form an inscrip- 
tion in forgotten characters : everything remained the 
same, except that a thick covert of bushes shrouded 
the lower part of the rock, and would have hidden 
Roger Malvin had he still been sitting there. Yet 
in the next moment Reuben’s eye was caught by 
another change that time had effected since he last 
stood where he was now standing again behind the 
earthy roots of the uptorn tree. The sapling to which 
he had bound the bloodstained symbol of bis vow had 


ROGER M ALVIN'S BURIAL. 


65 


increased and strengthened into an oak, far indeed 
from its maturity, but with no mean spread of shad- 
owy branches. There was one singularity observable 
in this tree which made Reuben tremble. The middle 
and lower branches were in luxuriant life, and an ex- 
cess of vegetation had fringed the trunk almost to the 
ground ; but a blight had apparently stricken the upper 
part of the oak, and the very topmost bough was with- 
ered, sapless, and utterly dead. Reuben remembered 
how the little banner had fluttered on that topmost 
bough, when it was green and lovely, eighteen years 
before. Whose guilt had blasted it ? 

Dorcas, after the departure of the two hunters, con- 
tinued her preparations for their evening repast. Her 
sylvan table was the moss -covered trunk of a large 
fallen tree, on the broadest part of which she had 
spread a snow-white cloth and arranged what were 
left of the bright pewter vessels that had been her 
pride in the settlements. It had a strange aspect, 
that one little spot of homely comfort in the desolate 
heart of Nature. The sunshine yet lingered upon the 
higher branches of the trees that grew on rising 
ground ; but the shadows of evening had deepened 
into the hollow where the encampment was made, and 
the firelight began to redden as it gleamed up the 
tall trunks of the pines or hovered on the dense and 
obscure mass of foliage that circled round the spot. 
The heart of Dorcas was not sad ; for she felt that 
it was better to journey in the wilderness with two 
whom she loved than to be a lonely woman in a crowd 
that cared not for her. As she busied herself in ar- 
ranging seats of mouldering wood, covered with leaves, 
for Reuben and her son, her voice danced through 


66 


HA WTHORNE. 


the gloomy forest in the measure of a song that she 
had learned in youth. The rude melody, the produc- 
tion of a bard who won no name, was descriptive of 
a winter evening in a frontier cottage, when, secured 
from savage inroad by the high-piled snow-drifts, the 
family rejoiced by their own fireside. The whole song 
possessed the nameless charm peculiar to unborrowed 
thought, but four continually-recurring lines shone out 
from the rest like the blaze of the hearth whose joys 
they celebrated. Into them, working magic with a 
few simple words, the poet had instilled the very 
essence of domestic love and household happiness, 
and they were poetry and picture joined in one. As 
Dorcas sang, the walls of her forsaken home seemed 
to encircle her ; she no longer saw the gloomy pines, 
nor heard the wind which still, as she began each 
verse, sent a heavy breath through the branches, and 
died away in a hollow moan from the burden of the 
song. She was aroused by the report of a gun in the 
vicinity of the encampment; and either the sudden 
sound, or her loneliness by the glowing fire, caused 
her to tremble violently. The next moment she 
laughed in the pride of a mother’s heart. 

“ My beautiful young hunter ! My boy has slain a 
deer ! ” she exclaimed, recollecting that in the direc- 
tion whence the shot proceeded Cyrus had gone to the 
chase. 

She waited a reasonable time to hear her son’s light 
step bounding over the rustling leaves to tell of his 
success. But he did not immediately appear ; and 
she sent her cheerful voice among the trees in search 
of him. 

“ Cyrus ! Cyrus ! ” 

His coming was still delayed ; and she determined, 


ROGER M ALVIN’S BURIAL. 


67 


as the report had apparently been very near, to seek 
for him in person. Her assistance, also, might be nec- 
essary in bringing home the venison which she flat- 
tered herself he had obtained. She therefore set for- 
ward, directing her steps by the long-past sound, and 
singing as she went, in order that the boy might be 
aware of her approach and run to meet her. From 
behind the trunk of every tree, and from every hid- 
ing-place in the thick foliage of the undergrowth, she 
hoped to discover the countenance of her son, laugh- 
ing with the sportive mischief that is born of affection. 
The sun was now beneath the horizon, and the light 
that came down among the leaves was sufficiently dim 
to create many illusions in her expecting fancy. Sev- 
eral times she seemed indistinctly to see his face gazing 
out from among the leaves; and once she imagined 
that he stood beckoning to her at the base of a craggy 
rock. Keeping her eyes on this object, however, it 
proved to be no more than the trunk of an oak fringed 
to the very ground with little branches, one of which, 
thrust out farther than the rest, was shaken by the 
breeze. Making her way round the foot of the rock, 
she suddenly found herself close to her husband, who 
had approached in another direction. Leaning upon 
the butt of his gun, the muzzle of which rested upon 
the withered leaves, he was apparently absorbed in 
the contemplation of some object at his feet. 

“ How is this Reuben ? Have you slain the deer 
and fallen asleep over him?” exclaimed Dorcas, laugh- 
ing cheerfully, on her first slight observation of his 
posture and appearance. 

hie stirred not, neither did he turn his eyes towards 
her ; and a cold, shuddering fear, indefinite in its 
source and object, began to creep into her blood. She 


68 


HA W THORNE. 


now perceived that her husband’s face was ghastly 
pale, and his features were rigid, as if incapable of 
assuming any other expression than the strong despair 
which had hardened upon them. He gave not the 
slightest evidence that he was aware of her approach. 

“ For the love of Heaven, Reuben, speak to me ! ” 
cried Dorcas ; and the strange sound of her own voice 
affrighted her even more than the dead silence. 

Her husband started, stared into her face, drew her 
to the front of the rock, and pointed with his finger. 

Oh, there lay the boy, asleep, but dreamless, upon 
the fallen forest leaves! His cheek rested upon his 
arm — his curled locks were thrown back from his 
brow — his limbs were slightly relaxed. Had a sud- 
den weariness overcome the youthful hunter? Would 
his mother’s voice arouse him ? She knew that it was 
death. 

“ This broad rock is the gravestone of your near 
kindred, Dorcas,” said her husband. “ Your tears will 
fall at once over your father and your son.” 

She heard him not. With one wild shriek, that 
seemed to force its way from the sufferer’s inmost soul, 
she sank insensible by the side of her dead boy. At 
that moment the withered topmost bough of the oak 
loosened itself in the stilly air, and fell in soft, light 
fragments upon the rock, upon the leaves, upon Reu- 
ben, upon his wife and child, and upon Roger Malvin’s 
bones. Then Reuben’s heart was stricken, and the 
tears gushed out like water from a rock. The vow 
that the wounded youth had made the blighted man 
had come to redeem. His sin was expiated, — the 
curse was gone from him ; and in the hour when he 
had shed blood dearer to him than his own, a prayer, 
the first for years, went up to Heaven from the lips of 
Reuben Bourne. 


THE WEDDING KNELL. 

There is a certain church in the city of New York 
which I have always regarded with peculiar interest, 
on account of a marriage there solemnized, under very 
singular circumstances, in my grandmother’s girlhood. 
That venerable lady chanced to be a spectator of the 
scene, and ever after made it her favorite narrative. 
Whether the edifice now standing on the same site be 
the identical one to which she referred, I am not anti- 
quarian enough to know ; nor would it be worth while 
to correct myself, perhaps, of an agreeable error, by 
reading the date of its erection on the tablet over the 
door. It is a stately church, surrounded by an in- 
closure of the loveliest green, within which appear 
urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms of monumental 
marble, the tributes of private affection, or more splen- 
did memorials of historic dust. With such a place, 
though the tumult of the city rolls beneath its tower, 
one would be willing to connect some legendary in- 
terest. 

The marriage might be considered as the result of 
an early engagement, though there had been two in- 
termediate weddings on the lady’s part, and forty 
years of celibacy on that of the gentleman. At sixty- 
five, Mr. Ellenwood was a shy, but not quite a se- 
cluded man ; selfish, like all men who brood over their 
own hearts, yet manifesting on rare occasions a vein 
of generous sentiment ; d scholar throughout life, 
though always an indolent one, because his studies 


70 


HA WTHORNE. 


had no definite object, either of public advantage or 
personal ambition ; a gentleman, high bred and fas- 
tidiously delicate, yet sometimes requiring a considera- 
ble relaxation, in his behalf, of the common rules of 
society. In truth, there were so many anomalies in 
his character, and though shrinking with diseased sen- 
sibility from public notice, it had been his fatality so 
often to become the topic of the day, by some wild ec- 
centricity of conduct, that people searched his lineage 
for an hereditary taint of insanity. But there was no 
need of this. His caprices had their origin in a mind 
that lacked the support of an engrossing purpose, and 
in feelings that preyed upon themselves for want of 
other food. If he were mad, it was the consequence, 
and not the cause, of an aimless and abortive life. 

The widow was as complete a contrast to her third 
bridegroom, in everything but age, as can well be con- 
ceived. Compelled to relinquish her first engagement, 
she had been united to a man of twice her own years, 
to whom she became an exemplary wife, and by whose 
death she was left in possession of a splendid for time. 
A southern gentleman, considerably younger than her- 
self, succeeded to her hand, and carried her to Charles- 
ton, where, after many uncomfortable years, she found 
herself again a widow. It would have been singular, 
if any uncommon delicacy of feeling had survived 
through such a life as Mrs. Dabney’s ; it could not 
but be crushed and killed by her early disappointment, 
the cold duty of her first marriage, the dislocation of 
the heart’s principles, consequent on a second union, 
and the unkindness of her southern husband, which 
had inevitably driven her to connect the idea of his 
death with that of her comfort. To be brief, she was 
that wisest, but miloveliest, variety of woman, a phi- 


THE WEDDING KNELL. 


71 


losopher, bearing troubles of the heart with equanimity, 
dispensing with all that should have been her happi- 
ness, and making the best of what remained. Sage in 
most matters, the widow was perhaps the more amia- 
ble for the one frailty that made her ridiculous. Be- 
ing childless, she could not remain beautiful by proxy, 
in the person of a daughter ; she therefore refused to 
grow old and ugly, on any consideration ; she strug- 
gled with Time, and held fast her roses in spite of 
him, till the venerable thief appeared to have relin- 
quished the spoil, as not worth the trouble of acquir- 
ing it. 

The approaching marriage of this woman of the 
world with such an unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood 
was announced soon after Mrs. Dabney’s return to 
her native city. Superficial observers, and deeper 
ones, seemed to concur in supposing that the lady 
must have borne no inactive part in arranging the 
affair ; there were considerations of expediency which 
she would be far more likely to appreciate than Mr. 
Ellenwood ; and there was just the specious phantom 
of sentiment and romance in this late union of two 
early lovers which sometimes makes a fool of a woman 
who has lost her true feelings among the accidents of 
life. All the wonder was, how the gentleman, with 
his lack of worldly wisdom and agonizing conscious- 
ness of ridicule, could have been induced to take a 
measure at once so prudent and so laughable. But 
while people talked the wedding-day arrived. The 
ceremony was to be solemnized according to the Epis- 
copalian forms, and in open church, with a degree of 
publicity that attracted many spectators, who occupied 
the front seats of the galleries, and the pews near the 
altar and along the broad aisle. It had been arranged, 


72 


HA wr HORNE. 


or possibly it was the custom of the day, that the par- 
ties should proceed separately to church. By some 
accident the bridegroom was a little less punctual than 
the widow and her bridal attendants ; with whose ar- 
rival, after this tedious, but necessary preface, the 
action of our tale may be said to commence. 

The clumsy wheels of several old-fashioned coaches 
were heard, and the gentlemen and ladies composing 
the bridal party came through the church door with 
the sudden and gladsome effect of a burst of sunshine. 
The whole group, except the principal figure, was 
made up of youth and gayety. As they streamed up 
the broad aisle, while the pews and pillars seemed to 
brighten on either side, their steps were as buoyant as 
if they mistook the church for a ball-room, and were 
ready to dance hand in hand to the altar. So brilliant 
was the spectacle that few took notice of a singular 
phenomenon that had marked its entrance. At the 
moment when the bride’s foot touched the threshold 
the bell swung heavily in the tower above her, and 
sent forth its deepest knell. The vibrations died away 
and returned with prolonged solemnity, as she entered 
the body of the church. 

“ Good heavens ! what an omen,” whispered a young 
lady to her lover. 

“ On my honor,” replied the gentleman, “ I believe 
the bell has the good taste to toll of its own accord. 
What has she to do with weddings? If you, dearest 
Julia, were approaching the altar the bell would ring 
out its merriest peal. It has only a funeral knell for 
her.” 

The bride and most of her company had been too 
much occupied with the bustle of entrance to hear the 
first boding stroke of the bell, or at least to reflect on 


THE WEDDING KNELL. 


73 


the singularity of such a welcome to the altar. They 
therefore continued to advance with undiminished 
gayety. The gorgeous dresses of the time, the crim- 
son velvet coats, the gold-laced hats, the hoop petti- 
coats, the silk, satin, brocade, and embroidery, the 
buckles, canes, and swords, all displayed to the best 
advantage on persons suited to such finery, made the 
group appear more like a bright-colored picture than 
anything real. But by what perversity of taste had 
the artist represented his principal figure as so wrin- 
kled and decayed, while yet he had decked her out in 
the brightest splendor of attire, as if the loveliest 
maiden had suddenly withered into age, and become a 
moral to the beautiful aroimd her ! On they went, 
however, and had glittered along about a third of the 
aisle, when another stroke of the bell seemed to fill 
the church with a visible gloom, dimming and obscur- 
ing the bright pageant, till it shone forth again as 
from a mist. 

This time the party wavered, stopped, and huddled 
closer together, while a slight scream was heard from 
some of the ladies, and a confused whispering among 
the gentlemen. Thus tossing to and fro, they might 
have been fancifully compared to a splendid bunch of 
flowers, suddenly shaken by a puff of wind, which 
threatened to scatter the leaves of an old, brown, with- 
ered rose, on the same stalk with two dewy buds, — 
such being the emblem of the widow between her fair 
young bridemaids. But her heroism was admirable. 
She had started with an irrepressible shudder, as if 
the stroke of the bell had fallen directly on her heart ; 
then, recovering herself, while her attendants were 
yet in dismay, she took the lead, and paced calmly 
up the aisle. The bell continued to swing, strike, and 


74 


HA W THORNE. 


vibrate, with the same doleful regularity as when a 
corpse is on its way to the tomb. 

“ My young friends here have their nerves a little 
shaken,” said the widow, with a smile, to the clergy- 
man at the altar. “ But so many weddings have been 
ushered in with the merriest peal of the bells, and yet 
turned out unhappily, that I shall hope for better for- 
tune under such different auspices.” 

“ Madam,” answered the rector, in great perplexity, 
“ this strange occurrence brings to my mind a mar- 
riage sermon of the famous Bishop Taylor, wherein 
he mingles so many thoughts of mortality and future 
woe, that, to speak somewhat after his own rich style, 
he seems to hang the bridal chamber in black, and 
cut the wedding garment out of a coffin pall. And 
it has been the custom of divers nations to infuse 
something of sadness into their marriage ceremonies, 
so to keep death in mind while contracting that en- 
gagement which is life’s chiefest business. Thus we 
may draw a sad but profitable moral from this funeral 
knell.” 

But, though the clergyman might have given his 
moral even a keener point, he did not fail to dispatch 
an attendant to inquire into the mystery, and stop 
those sounds, so dismally appropriate to such a mar- 
riage. A brief space elapsed, during which the si- 
lence was broken only by whispers, and a few sup- 
pressed titterings, among the wedding party and the 
spectators, who, after the first shock, were disposed to 
draw an ill-natured merriment from the affair. The 
young have less charity for aged follies than the old 
for those of youth. The widow’s glance was observed 
to wander, for an instant, towards a window of the 
church, as if searching for the time-worn marble that 


THE WEDDING KNELL. 


75 


she had dedicated to her first husband ; then her eye- 
lids dropped over their faded orbs, and her thoughts 
were drawn irresistibly to another grave. Two buried 
men, with a voice at her ear, and a cry afar off, were 
calling her to be down beside them. Perhaps, with 
momentary truth of feebng, she thought how much 
happier had been her fate, if, after years of bliss, the 
bell were now tobing for her funeral, and she were 
followed to the grave by the old affection of her ear- 
best lover, long her husband. But why had she re- 
turned to him, when their cold hearts shrank from 
each other’s embrace ? 

Still the death-beb tolled so mournfully, that the 
sunshine seemed to fade in the air. A whisper, com- 
municated from those who stood nearest the windows, 
now spread through the church ; a hearse, with a train 
of several coaches, was creeping along the street, con- 
veying some dead man to the churchyard, while the 
bride awaited a living one at the altar. Immediately 
after, the footsteps of the bridegroom and his friends 
were heard at the door. The widow looked down the 
aisle, and clinched the arm of one of her bridemaids 
in her bony hand with such unconscious violence, that 
the fair girl trembled. 

“ You frighten me, my dear madam ! ” cried she. 
“ For Heaven’s sake, what is the matter? ” 

“ Nothing, my dear, nothing,” said the widow ; then, 
whispering close to her ear, “ There is a foolish 
fancy that I cannot get rid of. I am expecting my 
bridegroom to come into the church, with my first 
two husbands for groomsmen ! ” 

“ Look, look ! ” screamed the bridemaid. “ What 
is here ? The funeral ! ” 

As she spoke, a dark procession paced into the 


76 


HA wr HORNE. 


church. First came an old man and woman, like chief 
mourners at a funeral, attired from head to foot in the 
deepest black, all but their pale features and hoary 
hair; he leaning on a staff, and supporting her de- 
crepit form with his nerveless arm. Behind appeared 
another, and another pair, as aged, as black, and 
mournful as the first. As they drew near, the widow 
recognized in every face some trait of former friends, 
long forgotten, but now returning, as if from their old 
graves, to warn her to prepare a shroud ; or, with pur- 
pose almost as unwelcome, to exhibit their wrinkles 
and infirmity, and claim her as their companion by 
the tokens of her own decay. Many a merry night 
had she danced with them, in youth. And now, in 
joyless age, she felt that some withered partner should 
request her hand, and all unite, in a dance of death, 
to the music of the funeral bell. 

While these aged mourners were passing up the 
aisle, it was observed that, from pew to pew, the spec- 
tators shuddered with irrepressible awe, as some ob- 
ject, hitherto concealed by the intervening figures, 
came full in sight. Many turned away their faces ; 
others kept a fixed and rigid stare ; and a young girl 
giggled hysterically, and fainted with the laughter on 
her lips. When the spectral procession approached 
the altar, each couple separated, and slowly diverged, 
till, in the centre, appeared a form, that had been 
worthily ushered in with all this gloomy pomp, the 
death knell, and the funeral. It was the bridegroom 
in his shroud ! 

No garb but that of the grave could have befitted 
such a deathlike aspect; the eyes, indeed, had the 
wild gleam of a sepulchral lamp ; all else was fixed in 
the stern calmness which old men wear in the coffin. 


THE WEDDING KNELL. 


77 


The corpse stood motionless, but addressed the widow 
in accents that seemed to melt into the clang of the 
bell, which fell heavily on the air while he spoke. 

“ Come, my bride ! ” said those pale lips, “ the 
hearse is ready. The sexton stands waiting for us at 
the door of the tomb. Let us be married ; and then 
to our coffins ! ” 

How shall the widow’s horror be represented ? It 
gave her the ghastliness of a dead man’s bride. Her 
youthful friends stood apart, shuddering at the mourn- 
ers, the shrouded bridegroom, and herself ; the whole 
scene expressed, by the strongest imagery, the vain 
struggle of the gilded vanities of this world, when op- 
posed to age, infirmity, sorrow, and death. The awe- 
struck silence was first broken by the clergyman. 

“Mr. Ellenwood,” said he, soothingly, yet with 
somewhat of authority, “you are not well. Your 
mind has been agitated by the unusual circumstances 
in which you are placed. The ceremony must be de- 
ferred. As an old friend, let me entreat you to re- 
turn home.” 

“ Home ! yes, but not without my bride,” answered 
he, in the same hollow accents. “You deem this 
mockery ; perhaps madness. Had I bedizened my 
aged and broken frame with scarlet and embroidery 
— had I forced my withered lips to smile at my dead 
heart — that might have been mockery, or madness. 
But now, let young and old declare, which of us has 
come hither without a wedding garment, the bride- 
groom or the bride ! ” 

He stepped forward at a ghostly pace, and stood be- 
side the widow, contrasting the awful simplicity of 
his shroud with the glare and glitter in which she had 
arrayed herself for this unhappy scene. None, that 


78 


HA WTHORNE. 


beheld them, could deny the terrible strength of the 
moral which his disordered intellect had contrived to 
draw. 

“ Cruel ! cruel ! ” groaned the heart-stricken bride. 

“ Cruel ! ” repeated he ; then, losing his deathlike 
composure in a wild bitterness : “ Heaven judge 
which of us has been cruel to the other ! In youth 
you deprived me of my happiness, my hopes, my aims ; 
you took away all the substance of my life, and made 
it a dream without reality enough even to grieve at — 
with only a pervading gloom, through which I walked 
wearily, and cared not whither. But after forty years, 
when I have built my tomb, and would not give up 
the thought of resting there — no, not for such a life 
as we once pictured — you call me to the altar. At 
your summons I am here. But other husbands have 
enjoyed your youth, your beauty, your warmth of 
heart, and all that could be termed your life. What 
is there for me but your decay and death? And 
therefore I have bidden these fimeral friends, and be- 
spoken the sexton’s deepest knell, and am come, in my 
shroud, to wed you, as with a burial service, that we 
may join our hands at the door of the sepulchre, and 
enter it together.” 

It was not frenzy ; it was not merely the drunken- 
ness of strong emotion, in a heart unused to it, that 
now wrought upon the bride. The stern lesson of the 
day had done its work; her worldliness was gone. 
She seized the bridegroom’s hand. 

“ Yes ! ” cried she. “ Let us wed, even at the door 
of the sepulchre! My life is gone in vanity and 
emptiness. But at its close there is one true feeling. 
It has made me what I was in youth ; it makes me 
worthy of you. Time is no more for both of us. Let 
us wed for Eternity ! ” 


THE WEDDING KNELL . 


79 


With a long and deep regard, the bridegroom 
looked into her eyes, while a tear was gathering in 
his own. How strange that gush of human feeling 
from the frozen bosom of a corpse ! He wiped away 
the tears even with his shroud. 

“Beloved of my youth,” said he, “I have been 
wild. The despair of my whole lifetime had returned 
at once, and maddened me. Forgive; and be for- 
given. Yes ; it is evening with us now ; and we have 
realized none of our morning dreams of happiness. 
But let us join our hands before the altar, as lovers 
whom adverse circumstances have separated through 
life, yet who meet again as they are leaving it, and 
find their earthly affection changed into something 
holy as religion. And what is Time, to the married 
of Eternity ? ” 

Amid the tears of many, and a swell of exalted 
sentiment, in those who felt aright, was solemnized 
the union of two immortal souls. The train of with- 
ered mourners, the hoary bridegroom in his shroud, 
the pale features of the aged bride, and the death- 
bell tolling through the whole, till its deep voice over- 
powered the marriage words, all marked the funeral 
of earthly hopes. But as the ceremony proceeded, 
the organ, as if stirred by the sympathies of this im- 
pressive scene, poured forth an anthem, first mingling 
with the dismal knell, then rising to a loftier strain, 
till the soul looked down upon its woe. And when 
the awful rite was finished, and with cold hand in cold 
hand, the Married of Eternity withdrew, the organ’s 
peal of solemn triumph drowned the W edding Knell- 


THE GRAY CHAMPION 


The imaginative handling which Hawthorne gave to New 
England history is well illustrated in the dramatic and elu- 
sive tale of “ The Gray Champion.” The period in which 
it is set was one of historic moment in New England. The 
course of events in England was always more or less re- 
flected in the daughter country, and a transition there was 
a transition here. The bloodless revolution which saw the 
throne of England pass from the house of Stuart to the con- 
stitutional monarchy of William and Mary could not fail to 
communicate something of its motion to the English beyond 
the sea ; and the agitation in New England, when rumors 
had sounded of the coming of the Prince of Orange to Eng- 
land, affected powerfully the minds of many who had been 
rebelling inwardly against that assumption of power by Sir 
Edmund Andros which was a petty reproduction of Stuart 
arbitrariness. Here there had already been a miniature 
revolution. 

But what lifts this tale above a lively retelling of historic 
incident is the same genius which was at work in “ Howe’s 
Masquerade ” and “ Old Esther Dudley.” Hawthorne 
takes the more or less obscure story of the three regicides 
who had escaped to New England and were long in hiding 
among a sympathetic people, and blends it with that myth 
of many variants which finds expression in the tales of 
King Arthur, Frederick Barbarossa, and Holger the Dane. 
King Arthur, as Tennyson sings, was in Merlin’s prophecy 
to come again to rule, the great emperor Frederick the Red- 
heard sleeps in a mountain cave ready to awake in Ger- 
many’s need, and Holger, as Andersen relates, likewise 


THE GRAY CHAMPION. 


81 


waits to redeem Denmark. Perhaps in no other sketch has 
Hawthorne shown more of that will-o’-the-wisp genius which 
enabled him to lead the prosaic reader of New England 
history into the low ground and misty regions where legends 
grow. Here, too, as elsewhere, he renders the tale all the 
more effective by his own candid way of standing off and 
looking at the spectacle as if he too was anxious for a satis- 
factory explanation. 

THE GRAY CHAMPION. 

Theke was once a time when New England groaned 
under the actual pressure of heavier wrongs than those 
threatened ones which brought on the Revolution. 
James II., the bigoted successor of Charles the Vo- 
luptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies, 
and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away 
our liberties and endanger our religion. The admin- 
istration of Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a 
single characteristic of tyranny : a Governor and 
Council, holding office from the King, and wholly in- 
dependent of the country ; laws made and taxes lev- 
ied without concurrence of the people immediate or 
by their representatives ; the rights of private citizens 
violated, and the titles of all landed property declared 
void ; the voice of complaint stifled by restrictions on 
the press ; and, finally, disaffection overawed by the 
first band of mercenary troops that ever’ marched on 
our free soil. For two years our ancestors were kept 
in sullen submission by that filial love which had in- 
variably secured their allegiance to the mother coun- 
try, whether its head chanced to be a Parliament, Pro- 
tector, or Popish Monarch. Till these evil times, 
however, such allegiance had been merely nominal, 
and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying far 


82 


HA WTHORNE. 


more freedom than is even yet the privilege of the 
native subjects of Great Britain. 

At length a rumor reached our shores that the 
Prince of Orange had ventured on an enterprise, the 
success of which would be the triumph of civil and 
religious rights and the salvation of New England. 
It was but a doubtful whisper ; it might be false, or 
the attempt might fail ; and, in either case, the man 
that; stirred against King James would lose his head. 
Still the intelligence produced a marked effect. The 
people smiled mysteriously in the streets, and threw 
bold glances at their oppressors ; while far and wide 
there was a subdued and silent agitation, as if the 
slightest signal would rouse the whole land from its 
sluggish despondency. Aware of their danger, the 
rulers resolved to avert it by an imposing display of 
strength, and perhaps to confirm their despotism by yet 
harsher measures. One afternoon in April, 1689, Sir 
Edmund Andros and his favorite councillors, being 
warm with wine, assembled the red-coats of the Gov- 
ernor’s Guard, and made their appearance in the 
streets of Boston. The sun was near setting when 
the march commenced. 

The roll of the drum at that unquiet crisis seemed 
to go through the streets, less as the martial music of 
the soldiers, than as a muster-call to the inhabitants 
themselves. A multitude, by various avenues, assem- 
bled in King Street, which was destined to be the 
scene, nearly a century afterwards, of another en- 
counter between the troops of Britain, and a people 
struggling against her tyranny. Though more than 
sixty years had elapsed since the pilgrims came, this 
crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and 
sombre features of their character perhaps more strik- 


THE GRAY CHAMPION. 


83 


ingly in such a stern emergency than on happier oc- 
casions. There were the sober garb, the general sever- 
ity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed expression, 
the scriptural forms of speech, and the confidence in 
Heaven’s blessing on a righteous cause, which would 
have marked a band of the original Puritans, when 
threatened by some peril of the wilderness. Indeed, 
it was not yet time for the old spirit to be extinct : 
since there were men in the street that day who had 
worshipped there beneath the trees, before a house 
was reared to the God for whom they had become 
exiles. Old soldiers of the Parliament were here, 
too, smiling grimly at the thought that their aged 
arms might strike another blow against the house of 
Stuart. Here, also, were the veterans of King Phil- 
ip’s war, who had burned villages and slaughtered 
young and old, with pious fierceness, while the godly 
souls throughout the land were helping them with 
prayer. Several ministers were scattered among the 
crowd, which, unlike all other mobs, regarded them 
with such reverence, as if there were sanctity in their 
very garments. These holy men exerted their influ- 
ence to quiet the people, but not to disperse them. 
Meantime, the purpose of the Governor, in disturbing 
the peace of the town at a period when the slightest 
commotion might throw the country into a ferment, 
was almost the universal subject of inquiry, and vari- 
ously explained. 

“ Satan will strike his master-stroke presently,” 
cried some, “ because he knoweth that his time is 
short. All our godly pastors are to be dragged to 
prison ! W e shall see them at a Smithfield fire in 
King Street ! ” 

Hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer 


84 


HA WTHORNE. 


round their minister, who looked calmly upwards and 
assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well befitted a 
candidate for the highest honor of his profession, the 
crown of martyrdom. It was actually fancied, at that 
period, that New England might have a John Rogers 
of her own to take the place of that worthy in the 
Primer. 

“ The Pope of Rome has given orders for a new 
St. Bartholomew!” cried others. “We are to be 
massacred, man and male child ! ” 

Neither was this rumor wholly discredited, although 
the wiser class believed the Governor’s object some- 
what less atrocious. His predecessor under the old 
charter, Bradstreet, a venerable companion of the first 
settlers, was known to be in town. There were 
grounds for conjecturing, that Sir Edmund Andros 
intended at once to strike terror by a parade of mili- 
tary force, and to confound the opposite faction by 
possessing himself of their chief. 

“ Stand firm for the old charter Governor ! ” shouted 
the crowd, seizing upon the idea. “The good old 
Governor Bradstreet ! ” 

While this cry was at the loudest, the people were 
surprised by the well-known figure of Governor Brad- 
street himself, a patriarch of nearly ninety, who ap- 
peared on the elevated steps of a door, and, with char- 
acteristic mildness, besought them to submit to the 
constituted authorities. 

“ My children,” concluded this venerable person, 
“ do nothing rashly. Cry not aloud, but pray for the 
welfare of New England, and expect patiently what 
the Lord will do in this matter ! ” 

The event was soon to be decided. All this time, 
the roll of the drum had been approaching through 


THE GRAY CHAMPION . 


85 


Comhill, louder and deeper, till with reverberations 
from house to house, and the regular tramp of martial 
footsteps, it burst into the street. A double rank of 
soldiers made their appearance, occupying the whole 
breadth of the passage, with shouldered matchlocks, 
and matches burning, so as to present a row of fires 
in the dusk. Their steady march was like the prog- 
ress of a machine, that would roll irresistibly over 
everything in its way. Next, moving slowly, with a 
confused clatter of hoofs on the pavement, rode a party 
of mounted gentlemen, the central figure being Sir 
Edmund Andros, elderly, but erect and soldier-like. 
Those around him were his favorite councillors, and 
the bitterest foes of New England. At his right hand 
rode Edward Randolph, our arch-enemy, that “ blasted 
wretch,” as Cotton Mather calls him, who achieved 
the downfall of our ancient government, and was fol- 
lowed with a sensible curse, through life and to his 
grave. On the other side was Bullivant, scattering 
jests and mockery as he rode along. Dudley came 
behind, with a downcast look, dreading, as well he 
might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who 
beheld him, their only countryman by birth, among 
the oppressors of • his native land. The captain of a 
frigate in the harbor, and two or three civil officers 
imder the Crown, were also there. But the figure 
which most attracted the public eye, and stirred up 
the deepest feeling, was the Episcopal clergyman of 
King’s Chapel, riding haughtily among the magis- 
trates in his priestly vestments, the fitting representa- 
tive of prelacy and persecution, the union of church 
and state, and all those abominations which had driven 
the "Puritans to the wilderness. Another guard of 
soldiers, in douBle rank, brought up the rear. 


86 


HA WTHORNE. 


The whole scene was a picture of the condition of 
New England, and its moral, the deformity of any 
government that does not grow out of the nature of 
things and the character of the people. On one side 
the religious multitude, with their sad visages and dark 
attire, and on the other, the group of despotic rulers, 
with the high churchman in the midst, and here and 
there a crucifix at their bosoms, all magnificently clad, 
flushed with wine, proud of unjust authority, and 
scoffing at the universal groan. And the mercenary 
soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street with 
blood, showed the only means by which obedience 
could be secured. 

“ O Lord of Hosts,” cried a voice among the crowd, 
“ provide a Champion for thy people ! ” 

This ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as 
a herald’s cry, to introduce a remarkable personage. 
The crowd had rolled back, and were now huddled 
together nearly at the extremity of the street, while 
the soldiers had advanced no more than a third of its 
length. The intervening space was empty — a paved 
solitude, between lofty edifices, which threw almost a 
twilight shadow over it. Suddenly, there was seen 
the figure of an ancient man, who seemed to have 
emerged from among the people, and was walking by 
himself along the centre of the street, to confront the 
armed band. He wore the old Puritan dress, a dark 
cloak and a steeple-crowned hat, in the fashion of at 
least fifty years before, with a heavy sword upon his 
thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist the tremulous 
gait of age. 

When at some distance from the multitude, the old 
man turned slowly round, displaying a face of antique 
majesty, rendered doubly venerable by the hoary beard 


THE GRAY CHAMPION. 


87 


that descended on his breast. He made a gesture at 
once of encouragement and warning, then turned 
again, and resumed his way. 

“Who is this gray patriarch?’’ asked the young 
men of their sires. 

“ Who is this venerable brother ? ” asked the old 
men among themselves. 

But none could make reply. The fathers of the 
people, those of fourscore years and upwards, were 
disturbed, deeming it strange that they should forget 
one of such evident authority, whom they must have 
known in their early days, the associate of Wintlirop, 
and all the old councillors, giving laws, and making 
prayers, and leading them against the savage. The 
elderly men ought to have remembered him, too, with 
locks as gray in their youth, as their own were now. 
And the young ! How could he have passed so ut- 
terly from their memories — that hoary sire, the relic 
of long-departed times, whose awful benediction had 
surely been bestowed on their uncovered heads, in 
childhood ? 

“ Whence did he come ? What is his purpose ? 
Who can this old man be ? ” whispered the wondering 
crowd. 

Meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, 
was pursuing his solitary walk along the centre of the 
street. As he drew near the advancing soldiers, and 
as the roll ,of their drum came full upon his ear, the 
old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the 
decrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders, 
leaving him in gray but unbroken dignity. Now, he 
marched onward with a warrior’s step, keeping time 
to the military music. Thus the aged form advanced 
on one side, and the whole parade of soldiers and 


88 


HA WTHORNE. 


magistrates on the other, till, when scarcely twenty 
yards remained between, the old man grasped his staff 
by the middle, and held it before him like a leader’s 
truncheon. 

“ Stand ! ” cried he. 

The eye, the face, and attitude of command; the 
solemn, yet warlike peal of that voice, fit either to 
rule a host in the battle-field or be raised to God in 
prayer, were irresistible. At the old man’s word and 
outstretched arm, the roll of the drum was hushed at 
once, and the advancing line stood still. A tremulous 
enthusiasm seized upon the multitude. That stately 
form, combining the leader and the saint, so gray, so 
dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could only be- 
long to some old champion of the righteous cause, 
whom the oppressor’s drum had summoned from his 
grave. They raised a shout of awe and exultation, 
and looked for the deliverance of New England. 

The Governor, and the gentlemen of his party, per- 
ceiving themselves brought to an unexpected stand, 
rode hastily forward, as if they would have pressed 
their snorting and affrighted horses right against the 
hoary apparition. He, however, blenched not a step, 
but glancing his severe eye round the group, which 
half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on Sir 
Edmund Andros. One would have thought that the 
dark old man was chief ruler there, and that the Gov- 
ernor and Council, with soldiers at their back, repre- 
senting the whole power and authority of the Crown, 
had no alternative but obedience. 

“ What does this old fellow here ? ” cried Edward 
Randolph, fiercely. “ On, Sir Edmund ! Bid the sol- 
diers forward, and give the dotard the same choice 
that you give all his countrymen — to stand aside or 
be trampled on ! ” 

- I 


L.of C. 


THE GRAY CHAMPION . 


89 


“ Nay, nay, let us show respect to the good grand- 
sire,” said Bullivant, laughing. “ See you not, he is 
some old round-headed dignitary, who hath lain asleep 
these thirty years, and knows nothing of the change of 
times? Doubtless, he thinks to put us down with a 
proclamation in Old Noll’s name ! ” 

“ Are you mad, old man ? ” demanded Sir Edmund 
Andros, in loud and harsh tones. “ How dare you 
stay the march of King James’s Governor?” 

“I have stayed the march of a King himself, ere 
now,” replied the gray figure, with stern composure. 
“ I am here, Sir Governor, because the cry of an op- 
pressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place ; 
and beseeching this favor earnestly of the Lord, it was 
vouchsafed me to appear once again on earth, in the 
good old cause of his saints. And what speak ye of 
James? There is no longer a Popish tyrant on the 
throne of England, and by to-morrow noon, his name 
shall be a byword in this very street, where ye would 
make it a word of terror. Back, thou that wast a Gov- 
ernor, back ! With this night thy power is ended — 
to-morrow, the prison ! — back, lest I foretell the scaf- 
fold!” 

The people had been drawing nearer and nearer, 
and drinking in the words of their champion, who 
spoke in accents long disused, like one unaccustomed 
to converse, except with the dead of many years ago. 
But his voice stirred their souls. They confronted the 
soldiers, not wholly without arms, and ready to con- 
vert the very stones of the street into deadly weapons. 
Sir Edmund Andros looked at the old man ; then he 
cast his hard and cruel eye over the multitude, and 
beheld them burning with that lurid wrath, so difficult 
to kindle or to quench ; and again he fixed his gaze on 


90 


HA WTHORNE. 


the aged form, which stood obscurely in an open space, 
where neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. What 
were his thoughts, he uttered no word which might 
discover. But whether the oppressor were overawed 
by the Gray Champion’s look, or perceived his peril 
in the threatening attitude of the people, it is certain 
that he gave back, and ordered his soldiers to com- 
mence a slow and guarded retreat. Before another 
sunset, the Governor, and all that rode so proudly with 
him, were prisoners, and long ere it was known that 
James had abdicated, King William was proclaimed 
throughout New England. 

But where was the Gray Champion? Some re- 
ported that, when the troops had gone from King 
Street, and the people were thronging tumultuously in 
their rear, Bradstreet, the aged Governor, was seen 
to embrace a form more aged than his own. Others 
soberly affirmed, that while they marvelled at the ven- 
erable grandeur of his aspect, the old man had faded 
from their eyes, melting slowly into the hues of twi- 
light, till, where he stood, there was an empty space. 
But all agreed that the hoary shape was gone. The 
men of that generation watched for his reappearance, 
in sunshine and in twilight, but never saw him more, 
nor knew when his funeral passed, nor where his 
gravestone was. 

And who was the Gray Champion? Perhaps his 
• name might be found in the records of that stern 
Court of Justice, which passed a sentence, too mighty 
for the age, but glorious in all after-times, for its hum- 
bling lesson to the monarch and its high example to 
the subject. I have heard, that whenever the descend- 
ants of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their 
sires, the old man appears again. When eighty years 


<1 


THE GRAY CHAMPION. 


91 


had passed, he walked once more in King Street. Five 
years later, in the twilight of an April morning, he 
stood on the green, beside the meeting-house, at Lex- 
ington, where now the obelisk of granite, with a slab 
of slate inlaid, commemorates the first fallen of the 
Revolution. And when our fathers were toiling at 
the breastwork on Bunker’s Hill, all through that 
night the old warrior walked his rounds. Long, long 
may it be, ere he comes again ! His hour is one of 
darkness, and adversity, and peril. But should do- 
mestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader’s step pollute 
our soil, still may the Gray Champion come, for he 
is the type of New England’s hereditary spirit ; and 
his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever 
be the pledge, that New England’s sons will vindicate 
their ancestry. 


NOV 6 1800 



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